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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 →
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.
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.
A new issue brief examines the role of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) during the coronavirus pandemic, and public health emergencies more broadly. The analysis finds that the VHA has provided assistance to 46 states and D.C., including treating over 270 non-veteran patients with coronavirus.
Newly updated and expanded, the Peterson-KFF Health System Dashboard compiles data on the U.S. health system’s performance in four areas: access and affordability, health and well-being, health spending, and quality of care. Users can explore trends over time, as well as disparities and differences across demographic groups.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently declared a public health emergency due to the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, which has accounted for over 13,000 reported cases and 4,800 deaths. Some imported and locally acquired cases in health care workers have also been reported in the United States.
Health spending growth has consistently outpaced U.S. economic growth and is higher than medical spending in other wealthy countries. Despite spending more, the United States doesn't have better health outcome in terms of life expectancy, mortality rates and other measures. This brief provides an overview of trends in health costs and the performance of the U.S. health system, including comparisons to countries from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The brief charts growth in the nation's per capita health spending along with the recent slowdown, touching on the roles of expanded Medicaid eligibility, increases in Medicare beneficiaries and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Additionally, it discusses the health system's effectiveness and capacity to provide services, including the accessibility and affordability of care.
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 slideshow examines how cost and insurance affects people's access to care, including decisions to forgo or delay needed care and access to a usual source of care.
This Visualizing Health Policy infographic provides an overview of Medicare spending, including information on current federal spending relative to other government programs (e.g., Social Security) and percent-share of spending across Medicare services, as well as projected Medicare spending over the next decade and beyond.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds government agencies so far report spending approximately $1.9 billion in funding to respond to the Ebola outbreak internationally. The majority of this spending was by USAID (49%), followed by the Department of Defense (33%), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (18%). The U.S. government enacted $5.
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