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Because states have flexibility in designing their programs, state Medicaid spending and enrollment varies across states. This data note provides an overview of total Medicaid spending per enrollee by eligibility group and state.
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 Medicaid, the primary U.S. program providing comprehensive coverage of health care and long-term services and supports to about 80 million low-income people. Originating in 1965 and expanding with the Affordable Care Act, the chapter reviews Medicaid's evolution, including 2025 changes, and its joint federal and state financing and administration. It discusses how state-level flexibility in managing Medicaid leads to variation in coverage, spending, health care delivery, and access across…
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.
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