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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.
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.
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), millions of uninsured adults and children will gain eligibility for Medicaid or health coverage through new health insurance Exchanges beginning in 2014.
The health reform law has specific provisions covering mental health and substance use conditions, as well as general provisions to benefit those in need of behavioral health services. While addressing unmet needs, the reform law provisions raise new challenges.
The Affordable Care Act aims to promote higher quality care in part by rewarding – and eventually requiring – the reporting of certain quality measures. Previous efforts suggest that public reporting can add significant value.
A number of states have used the flexibility of the Medicaid program to develop innovative payment and delivery systems designed to coordinate and improve quality of care. This brief, based on site visits from November 2009 through March 2010, highlights care coordination and related efforts in five states: Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington state.
In July 2025, the Trump administration announced a new effort (“Making Health Tech Great Again”) towards health data interchange.. This brief describes the new, voluntary Trump administration interoperability initiative, provides an overview of key health information technology laws and regulations, and highlights some of the challenges and limitations of these efforts.
As the Trump administration announces a new partnership with private companies and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand access to digital health tools like apps, this KFF Health Tracking poll finds that most adults have used these tools to manage their care.
In a new column, President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman discusses new KFF survey data that shows that a surprising share of older adults with Medicare are using health tech regularly, and a solid majority support many of CMS’ goals to make it more widely available. But there are also big income gaps in the use of health tech, and concerns about AI, privacy, and other barriers to rapid and more widespread adoption. “Apparently… a lot of Medicare beneficiaries—but not all beneficiaries equally—are ready for more health tech, and have become tech savvy to survive,” Altman writes.
The new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) seeks to test new health care payment and service delivery models that can potentially enhance quality of care for beneficiaries while reducing costs.
In recent years, awareness of the patient’s important role in managing his or her own care has been steadily growing—fed not only by such trends as the proliferation of health information on the internet and direct-to-consumer advertising, but also by the emerging science of patient-centered decision making.
The Alliance for Health Reform and co-sponsors presented the second event in a three-part series of discussions on costs, the factors driving them up, and what (if anything) can be done about them. This briefing takes an in-depth look at two of the most often cited cost drivers - technology and chronic conditions.
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