Federal Budget

The U.S. government is the largest donor to global health in the world. This fact sheet breaks down the U.S. global health budget by program area: HIV/PEPFAR; tuberculosis; malaria/the President’s Malaria Initiative; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; maternal & child health; nutrition; family planning & reproductive health; global health security; and neglected tropical diseases.

In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman examines the data and history around adding work requirements to Medicaid and why the administrative burdens it imposes may offset any savings even for states that ideologically favor such an approach.

The Health Spending Explorer on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker helps users examine five decades worth of numbers documenting expenditures by federal and local governments, private insurers, and individuals on 15 categories of health services, including hospitals, physician and clinic care, and prescription drugs.

PEPFAR, the U.S. global HIV/AIDS program, is – for the first time in its two-decade history – facing significant challenges that could impede its ability to fulfill its mission. This policy brief provides an overview of recent events and ongoing challenges facing the program.

On May 22, the House passed a budget reconciliation bill that includes significant changes to the Medicaid program. On June 16, the Senate Finance committee released proposed reconciliation language with some substantive changes to the Medicaid work requirement provisions, but this language may change as the Senate debates the bill. This issue brief provides an overview of the Medicaid work requirement provisions.

Many navigator organizations responsible for helping consumers understand and sign up for health coverage in 2018 Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces say steep federal funding reductions that recently took effect will likely force them to limit their geographic service area, cut back outreach and public education, lay off staff members,…

In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman examines how the politics around the Medicaid program have changed as it has grown much larger and more popular, making it even tougher to block grant the program to cut federal Medicaid spending and hand it off to the states.

In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explores the nation’s twin health cost crises of affordability, especially for people who are sick and need a lot of health care, and national health spending, and why the solutions often work at cross purposes.

This Health Policy 101 chapter explores trends in health care costs in the U.S. and the factors that contribute to this spending. It also examines how health care spending varies across the population, the impact of costs on care affordability and individuals’ overall financial vulnerability.  

This brief examines the two presidential candidates’ records and other recent policy proposals that could inform starkly different directions for the program across key areas, including Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion, financing, eligibility, benefits, and cost-sharing, prescription drugs, long-term services and supports, and managed care.