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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.
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A new brief on the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker finds that the quality of the U.S. health system is improving in many areas, but comparable countries continue to outperform the United States on key measures.
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.
Most nonprofit hospitals and hospital systems had enough cash on hand in 2022 to cover operating expenses for an extended period of time, though about one-in-10 had relatively low levels to cover their expenses, which potentially could leave them vulnerable in a financial crisis, a new KFF analysis finds.
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.
Despite higher inflation and dwindling COVID-19 relief funding from the federal government, the nation’s largest for-profit health systems so far this year have operating margins that meet or exceed levels in 2019 prior to the pandemic, a new KFF analysis finds.
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.
Patient-provider email messaging accelerated early in the COVID-19 pandemic as more patients sought medical care remotely, and the addition of billing codes for digital health services and subsequent changes in insurers’ payment policies have enabled providers to bill insurers and patients for messaging.
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 chart collection explores price increases in private insurance for common services over time and finds significant geographic variation in prices. For example, the average price of a full knee replacement for those in large employer plans increased from $19,595 in 2003 to $34,063 in 2016, growth of 74% compared to a 28% increase in general inflation. The average price of a knee replacement in New York City is more than twice the price of the same procedure in the Louisville, Kentucky area.
This slideshow looks at how much the United States spends to treat specific diseases and tracks spending growth over time, using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Health Care Satellite Account. The analysis shows that three disease categories -- ill-defined, musculoskeletal and circulatory conditions -- account for about a third of medical services spending growth in the United States from 2000 to 2010. Spending on ill-defined conditions -- including check-ups, preventive care and treatment of colds and other minor conditions -- grew the fastest during that time period.
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