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.
A new policy brief provides a description of the Section 1115 law, its history, and an overview of how it plays a role in the restructuring of Medicaid and SCHIP.
A new report reveals that CHIP provided coverage for 2.7 million low-income children in December 2000, a 48% increase from December 1999. The report also shows that enrollment in CHIP has consistently increased by roughly 900,000 children per year in its first three years of operation.
A new report describes past waiver activity, the principles of the new HIFA initiative, and related policy implications.
This brief uses the latest available data from the National Survey of America's Families to assess the relationship of health coverage to work status, health, access and use of health services by women who left welfare in 1997 or after and had not returned by 1999.
As part of The Faces of Medicare, a collection of fact sheets profiling the characteristics and health needs of different groups of Medicare beneficiaries, highlights key facts about Medicare's low-income population, who have have greater health needs than those with higher incomes.
This commentary reviews Medicaid's role for low-income women and examines the implications Medicaid managed care on the delivery of health services to this vulnerable population. Today 40% of the Medicaid population, mostly poor women and their children, is enrolled in managed care.
Findings from a National Survey This national telephone survey of low-income parents represents a major effort to better understand the barriers to Medicaid enrollment and to test the usefulness of ideas to facilitate enrollment in a quantitative way.
Americans aren't thinking a lot about the poor these days. A new survey by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government found that only about one in 10 Americans names poverty, welfare, or something similar as one of the two top issues government should address.
A new report describes the Report to Congress by the Department of Health and Human Services on consumer protection and quality assurance requirements for Medicaid managed care and discusses the differences between the original Federal rule and the revised one.
Medicaid's Role in Covering Families Twelve years ago, the U.S. Congress passed the law requiring that by the end of fiscal year 2002, states would complete a series of incremental steps to ensure all children in families with incomes at or below the federal poverty line would have Medicaid coverage.
© 2026 KFF