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.
The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker is an online hub monitoring how well the U.S. health system is operating through key quality and cost measures. Visit the Tracker →
This brief describes gaps in data about hospital and health system finances and business practices that limit transparency for policymakers, researchers, and consumers. It examines data issues involving finances, debt collection practices, charity care, prices, ownership, and the 340B Drug Pricing Program.
This brief explains the role and implications of cross-market mergers between hospitals and health systems that operate in different regions and describes the approaches that government antitrust agencies have taken in reviewing these types of transactions.
Using health insurer financial data for 2023, we find that in 2023, per enrollee gross margins were highest in the Medicare Advantage market, and medical loss ratios were lowest in the individual insurance market. Across most markets, gross margins have been relatively stable in recent years.
Among women ages 18-35 with a clinical visit in the past two years, more than four in 10 (46%) report experiencing a negative interaction with a health care provider, according to a new analysis of 2022 KFF Women’s Health Survey (WHS) data.
A new issue brief based on focus groups conducted by KFF among NHPI adults living in Hawaii and the continental U.S. highlights barriers NHPI people face when accessing health care, including geographic isolation, limited system capacity, and language access. In their own words, participants describe both positive and negative experiences in health care settings and discuss concerns about mental health in their communities.
This conference report summarizes discussions at a March 2018 conference in Washington with 30 leaders from the health care community to launch Initiative 18/11, a partnership between the Society of Actuaries and KFF to address the rising cost of health care in the United States. It also lays out the next steps for the initiative.
This slideshow examines disease burden in the United States and comparable countries as measured by Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), which take into account years of life lost due to premature death and years of productive life lost to poor health or disability. Although the U.S. disease burden rate dropped 14 percent between 1990 and 2010. comparable countries saw an average decrease of 18 percent. In the United States, mental health and musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of years lost to disability, while cancer and circulatory diseases are the leading causes of years of life lost.
A new interactive tool on the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker allows users to analyze the most up-to-date data on U.S. health spending, then build, display and share the charts they create.
A new animated video on the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker provides an engaging “check-up” of the nation’s health system, addressing questions of whether it’s getting better or worse and how it compares to other countries.
This chart collection explores National Health Expenditure (NHE) data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), including the latest data from 2024.
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