The Right Care at the Right Time: Are Retail Clinics Meeting a Need?
The Alliance for Health Reform and WellPoint, Inc. discuss the role of urgent care centers and retail clinics emerging within the health care system.
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 →
The Alliance for Health Reform and WellPoint, Inc. discuss the role of urgent care centers and retail clinics emerging within the health care system.
In general, people in the United States use the health system less than people in comparable countries, and services in the U.S. are consistently more expensive than in countries of similar size and wealth. This slideshow examines price and utilization of several healthcare services, including magnetic resonance imaging, caesarian sections, angioplasty surgery and coronary bypass surgery, through data from the International Federation of Health Plans and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
This slideshow charts the recent slowdown in health spending in the United States and other industrialized nations. Some possible causes include economic factors and structural changes to the U.S. health system, such as higher cost sharing in private health insurance and lower payments to providers by Medicare and other public programs.
This chart collection compares health care spending in the U.S. and other industrialized countries, including data on health spending per person and the growth rate in recent years and over time.
The Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with the Peterson Center on Healthcare, today announced a new online hub dedicated to monitoring and assessing the performance of the U.S. health system.
Medicare Spending – A Look at Current, Short-term, and Long-term Trends 010615 Download View JAMA Infographic…
The health reform law of 2010 authorizes Medicare, beginning next year, to contract with accountable care organizations (ACOs) in a Medicare Shared Savings Program. ACOs provide financial incentives to improve the coordination and quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, while reducing costs.
With so many Americans dying, and so many more suffering severe economic hardship, it’s hard to look over the horizon at the larger questions the COVID-19 crisis will bring. The current emergency requires everyone’s attention 24/7. But an emerging set of questions will fall right in the bailiwick of the health policy community.
In this Axios column, Drew Altman looks at how the heroic performance of the nation's doctors on the frontlines of coronavirus care and effective communication by many physician scientists on television, is shifting the public's views, with twice as many Americans now saying doctors put people ahead of profits than they did in earlier KFF polling.
KFF and the Peterson Center on Healthcare examine market trends contributing to rising health costs and identify several potential federal and state policy issues to watch throughout 2025, including high-cost drugs, federal funding cuts, and workforce shortages.
© 2026 KFF