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 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 compares mortality rates in the United States and other industrialized countries for seven major causes of death. The data show that U.S. mortality rates for circulatory diseases and cancer have fallen in the past 30 years, driving a decline in the nation's overall rate. However, mortality rates for leading causes of death other than cancer are higher in the United States than the average for comparable countries.
This Visualizing Health Policy infographic with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) provides an overview of Medicare spending trends in the present, short term and long term. In the long term, Medicare spending as a share of the economy is projected to grow, and Medicare is projected to lack sufficient funds to pay all hospital bills beginning in 2030.
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. Recent federal spending on Medicare is about a third of Defense and Social Security spending combined. In the short term, Medicare spending per person is expected to be lower relative to…
In 2017, 7.2% of the U.S. population was diagnosed with diabetes - an 188% increase from 1980. This slideshow documents trends in health outcomes, quality of care, and spending on treatment for people in the U.S. with diabetes. It also looks at the costs of medications for treating diabetes, and U.S. health spending related to endocrine diseases.
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. Analysts from the Kaiser Family Foundation compiled an overall picture of health care quality in the United States, using the best available data from numerous sources on health outcomes, quality of care, and access to services. The brief, Measuring the…
Medicaid Provides Support for Providers and Services in the Health Care System Download Source CMS, Office of the Actuary, National Health Statistics Group, National Health Expenditure Accounts, 2013. Data for 2011
The AI revolution is already here — but what does it mean for patients, clinicians, and health care industry leaders? Eric Larsen, veteran health care strategist and longtime advisor to CEOs across the industry, joins host Chip Kahn for a discussion about why the U.S. health care industry is uniquely exposed to AI-driven disruption and the implications for patients, clinicians, and the health care workforce. Listen to Larsen's take on "the most consequential technology humanity’s…
The data is good enough, the technology is getting better, the computing is becoming more available, and the use cases are getting clearer—but is AI truly a revolutionary technological advancement yet for health care? With a 30-year perspective on what digital technology has done and failed to do in health care, Dr. John Halamka, President of the Mayo Clinic Platform, joins Chip in discussing whether AI is actually disruptive or another wave of incremental change.
When minutes matter for a patient’s care, what is AI’s role in clinical practice? Elad Walach, co-founder and CEO of Aidoc — a company with a comprehensive AI health care platform that analyzes real-time images and flags time-sensitive findings — shares his perspective on AI’s transformative power in dodging diagnostic error, improving access to care, and ensuring care quality in busy clinical settings.
© 2026 KFF