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As Republican policymakers consider how to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are likely to face a number of decisions about whether to retain any of the law’s changes to Medicare. Repealing the ACA has potential implications for Medicare spending, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation brief.
This analysis provides a detailed look at per person Medicare spending on the nearly 30 million beneficiaries over age 65 who are enrolled in the traditional Medicare program. Among the key findings of the report is that per person spending rises with age, peaking at age 96. But this rise is not entirely explained by Medicare spending on end of life care, which declines with age. What Medicare spends money on also changes as beneficiaries age. Hospital care is the largest component of Medicare spending throughout the age curve, up to age 100, but there is less spending on physician services and more on home health, skilled nursing and hospice care as beneficiaries age.
KFF analysis of data from the American Hospital Association (AHA) Annual Survey shows that the overall share of hospitals reporting hiring foreign-educated RNs has nearly doubled between 2010 and 2022, and a growing share of hospitals report hiring an increasing number of foreign-educated RNs to fill vacancies over time.
Recent trends in healthcare utilization and spending suggest that most spending on health services exceeds pre-pandemic levels and health costs are growing at a faster rate than in recent years. However, utilization of care has been uneven by setting and market.
This analysis examines the recent growth of Medicare Advantage as a share of hospital inpatient days. Medicare Advantage rose from 13% to 25% of all inpatient days from 2015 to 2023, although there was wide variation among hospitals.
Medicaid payments to hospitals, which include base and supplemental payments, play an important role in hospital finances and can affect beneficiaries’ access to care.This brief provides an overview of Medicaid payments for hospitals and explores the implications of the ACA Medicaid expansion, including changes in uncompensated care, as well as payment policy changes on hospital finances.
This data note provides a snapshot of Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2014 and their Medicare spending at the end of life. It examines Medicare per capita spending trends over time since 2000 and in 2014, both overall and by type of service, for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare who died in a given year compared to those who survived the year.
Among beneficiaries who died in 2014, Medicare spent significantly more per person on medical services for seniors in their late sixties and early seventies than on older beneficiaries, according to a new data note from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government declared numerous types of emergencies, Congress enacted several pieces of legislation, and various executive actions were taken and waivers issued, which established time-limited flexibilities and provisions designed to protect individuals and the health system during the pandemic. This resource provides a timeline identifying key health-related flexibilities and provisions specified by these various measures, the specific measure that determines their end date, and their end date.
This analysis examines the cost of COVID-19 treatment for inpatient care among people with health coverage through large employers. It finds that in 2020, COVID-19 hospitalizations cost an average of $41,611, including an average out-of-pocket payment of $1,280 for people with large employer coverage.
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