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 Health Policy 101 chapter explores the performance of the U.S. health system on a number of cost, outcomes, and quality measures by comparing it with those in similarly large and wealthy OECD nations. It highlights that despite significant spending, Americans have shorter life expectancies and encounter more barriers to health care, influenced by both the health system's structure and broader socioeconomic factors.
This Health Policy 101 chapter explores Medicare, a federal health insurance program covering more than 68 million people, established in 1965 for people age 65 or older and later expanded to cover people under age 65 with long-term disabilities. In addition to detailing Medicare eligibility, coverage, and spending, the chapter examines the increased role of private plans in providing benefits and the financing challenges posed by increasing health care costs and an aging population.
This budget summary provides an analysis of global health funding amounts provided in the House FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor HHS) appropriations bill and accompanying report.
To provide historical context for how changes to Medicaid spending may impact national health spending trends, this brief explores how Medicaid spending contributes to national health spending and how different service areas contribute to Medicaid costs.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations approved its FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor HHS) appropriations bill, accompanying report, and amendments on July 31, 2025. While most U.S. global health funding is provided to the State Department through a separate appropriations bill, the Labor HHS appropriations bill includes funding for global health programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as funding for global health research…
Under the reconciliation package, federal Medicaid spending in rural areas is estimated to decline by $137 billion, more than the $50 billion appropriated for the rural health fund.
The House Committee on Appropriations approved the FY 2026 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs (NSRP) appropriations bill and accompanying report on July 23, 2025. The NSRP bill includes funding for U.S. global health programs at the State Department through the Global Health Programs (GHP) account, which represents the bulk of global health assistance. Global health funding in the bill totaled $9.5 billion, a decrease of $512 million (-5%) below the FY 2025…
This analysis allocates the CBO’s estimated reduction in federal spending in the enacted reconciliation package across states based on KFF’s state-level data and where possible, prior modeling work; and shows the federal spending reductions relative to KFF’s projections of federal spending by state under current law.
The impact of medical debt on credit scores often has a cascading effect….Adults with health care debt from KFF’s Health Care Debt Survey cited a range of negative outcomes from trouble qualifying for loans to homelessness.
This report provides an analysis of donor government funding to address the HIV response in low- and middle-income countries in 2024, the latest year available, as well as trends over time. It includes both bilateral funding from donors and their multilateral contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), UNITAID, and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
© 2026 KFF