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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.
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The House of Representatives recently passed a budget reconciliation bill that would appropriate funding for cost-sharing reductions that insurers are required to provide to low-income enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace. This policy watch explains what these cost-sharing reductions are, how they relate to federal spending, and what effect appropriating funding might have on premiums and the uninsured rate.
In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, KFF's President and CEO, examines the different counts of the number of people on Medicaid that are currently in use, which range from 69 to 83 million, and why it might matter. He also discusses other ways to assess the reach of the program: “possibly it’s useful to explain why there are different numbers out there about what seemingly is an all-time simple question: how many people are…
A CMS rule, once finalized, is generally intended to exist permanently or until it is repealed.... This temporary implementation may preserve the potential for the reconciliation bill to generate official savings through changes to ACA marketplaces in later years (2027–2034) if enacted.
Prior KFF analysis allocated CBO’s federal Medicaid spending reductions and enrollment losses across the states, and this policy watch builds on that analysis to examine the potential impacts in expansion states compared with non-expansion states.
If Congress passes the reconciliation bill with the Finance Committee provision, 22 states might have to reduce their provider taxes on either hospitals or managed care organizations, cutting a key source of state Medicaid funding in those states. This policy watch explains how the Finance Committee provision would reduce states’ Medicaid spending, and the implications for expansion states.
This analysis details the number of people who would become uninsured from policy changes in the ACA Marketplaces and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, taken together, these changes will result in 16 million more uninsured people in the year 2034 than would otherwise be the case.
In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, KFF’s President and CEO, discusses the limits of polling on policy, and what we have learned over more than 30 years of polling about how giving people more information and arraying tradeoffs can change opinion, including on the health policy changes and funding cuts in the current reconciliation bill.
This poll finds two-thirds of the public view the "One Big Beautiful Bill" legislation unfavorably, and its favorability erodes further when people hear about its potential health impacts. As Congress debates changes to Medicaid and the ACA as part of the bill, each program's popularity is at a record high.
In his latest column, President and CEO Drew Altman discusses how, with nearly half, or about 10 million MAGA supporters and Republicans receiving coverage through the ACA Marketplaces, the policy changes and cuts being considered by Republicans to the Marketplaces will directly affect their own voters. Altman writes: "Republicans are no longer interested in repealing the ACA but seem comfortable shrinking it significantly if they can, so long as they don’t touch protections for pre-existing…
As Congress works to pass the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which includes significant changes to Medicaid and the ACA, the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll examines the views of groups that could be most directly impacted by the impending legislation. The poll finds most of the public is worried about the consequences of federal funding reductions to Medicaid, including rural residents, those with lower incomes, and across partisans.
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