The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
KFF’s policy research provides facts and analysis on a wide range of policy issues and public programs.
KFF designs, conducts and analyzes original public opinion and survey research on Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the health care system to help amplify the public’s voice in major national debates.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the organization’s core operating programs.
This data note provides a snapshot of Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2014 and their Medicare spending at the end of life. It examines Medicare per capita spending trends over time since 2000 and in 2014, both overall and by type of service, for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare who died in a given year compared to those who survived the year.
This primer provides an overview of congressional engagement in global health. It examines the structure of Congress and its role and key activities in global health. It then illustrates these by examining two global health examples: the creation and evolution of PEPFAR and the 2014/2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
On July 4, President Trump signed into law a budget reconciliation package once called the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that includes significant changes to the Medicaid program. This issue brief provides an overview of the Medicaid work requirement provisions.
This Health Policy 101 chapter explores the federal government’s role in health policy for the fragmented U.S. health care system. It examines the impact of the three federal branches and goes into further detail about the Department of Health and Human Services structure and the major congressional committees dealing with health care. It also briefly outlines the federal budgetary and regulatory process.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the FY 2025 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPs) appropriations bill, accompanying report, and amendments on July 25, 2024. The SFOPs bill includes funding for U.S. global health programs at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The SFOPs bill includes funding for U.S. global health programs at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Funding for these programs, through…
This brief examines key facts around proposals to align Medicare payments for outpatient services across care settings, otherwise known as “site-neutral payment reforms.”
This fact sheet provides a snapshot of global polio eradication efforts and examines the U.S. government’s role in addressing polio worldwide.
Medicare, the federal health program that provides health care and coverage to 54 million seniors and younger adults with permanent disabilities, is in the midst of an unprecedented slowdown in spending growth. A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation, How Much of the Medicare Spending Slowdown Can be Explained? Insights and Analysis from 2014, examines the factors that help explain why Medicare is on track to spend an estimated $580 billion in 2014,…
Zika, a mosquito-transmitted infection that in pregnant women can cause microcephaly as well as other serious birth defects, has recently become a global challenge, and with the first cases of local transmission now reported in the U.S., a domestic one as well. No new funding for Zika has yet been appropriated by Congress. While the President requested emergency funding from Congress to address Zika last February, it has yet to approve any funding and its own…
If enacted into law in its current form, and Congress takes no further action, [the House reconciliation bill's] increase in the deficit would trigger mandatory cuts, also known as sequestration, under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
© 2026 KFF
