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In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman reviews an evaluation of a “guaranteed income” (GI) randomized trial in Cambridge, MA and writes about the potential of GI strategies to reduce poverty and its effects. When it comes to influencing the social determinants of health, he argues, “income strategies” deployed outside of health care, such as GI, deserve as much attention from health care people as “service strategies.”
This brief examines the income, assets, and home equity of Medicare beneficiaries, overall and by age, race and ethnicity, and gender. Most Medicare beneficiaries live on relatively low incomes and have modest financial resources to draw upon if they need costly care or long-term services and supports.
To document the affordability challenges posed by out-of-pocket health care costs for people with Medicare, this brief analyzes out-of-pocket health care costs as a share of Social Security income and total income, including other sources of income in addition to Social Security.
This report examines the causes and contributors to medical debt, medical bankruptcy, and other difficulties with medical bills among people with insurance. Through in-depth interviews of nearly two-dozen people and quantitative analysis of national survey data, the authors of this report find that in-network and out-of-net-work cost sharing primarily contribute to medical debt among the insured.
This brief examines 10 key facts about women with Medicare and presents new statistics on the health, economic and functional status of women with Medicare.
To provide context for understanding the financial needs and well-being of older adults, this brief analyzes the latest data on poverty rates among the 58 million non-institutionalized adults ages 65 and older in the U.S overall, based on both the official poverty measure and the Supplemental Poverty Measure.
This analysis examines the income, savings, and home equity of Medicare beneficiaries in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. We look at the overall population, and variations by age, gender and race/ethnicity.
Since 2007, seniors with incomes greater than $85,000 have had to pay higher premiums for Medicare than their counterparts with lower incomes. Six percent of Medicare Part B enrollees are expected to pay higher monthly premiums in 2015, ranging from $147 to $336, depending on their income.
A small share of the 52.4 million elderly individuals and people with disabilities on Medicare have relatively high incomes, but most are of modest means -- with half living on incomes of less than $23,500 last year.
This slideshow presents the latest data on income, assets, and personal health care spending among people on Medicare.
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