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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.
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This brief provides an overview of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, including current data on plan availability, enrollment, and spending and financing, and highlights changes made under the Inflation Reduction Act.
This brief provides an overview of the major health-related COVID-19 federal emergency declarations that have been made since early on in the pandemic, summarizes the flexibilities triggered by each, and identifies the implications for their ending, related to coverage, costs, and payment for COVID-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines; Medicaid coverage and federal match rates; telehealth; access to medical countermeasures through FDA emergency use authorization (EUA); and other Medicaid, Medicare and private health insurance flexibilities.
This brief provides information about Medicare Advantage plans in 2025, including premiums, out-of-pocket limits, supplemental benefits, and prior authorization, as well as trends over time.
Following a pledge by insurance companies to reduce the burden of prior authorizations, KFF's Health Tracking Poll examines the publics experience with the process. The poll finds that most view insurers' delays and denials as a problem, and few are aware of the newly announced pledge.
This brief focuses on the stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plan marketplace and its somewhat uncertain future, in light of recent trends in plan availability and the potential for another year of premium increases in 2026, in part depending on what the Trump administration decides to do with the temporary Part D premium stabilization demonstration. The brief explains why the stability of the PDP market matters, both for people in traditional Medicare who want prescription drug coverage but also for the viability of traditional Medicare as an option vis a vis Medicare Advantage.
Higher market concentration in Medicare Advantage insurance markets may lower the incentive for insurers to compete for potential enrollees by making plans more appealing through more comprehensive benefits or lower costs.
Federal spending on the Medicare Advantage quality bonus program has more than quadrupled since 2015, rising to at least $12.7 billion in 2025. Most Medicare Advantage enrollees are in a plan that receives a bonus payment in 2025, with employer- and union-sponsored plans receiving the highest bonus payments and special needs plans receiving the lowest bonus payments, on average.
This brief highlights key facts about Medicare beneficiaries living in rural areas, including their demographic and health characteristics, access to care, and satisfaction with care.
Few employers offer retiree health benefits, and those that do increasingly are turning to Medicare Advantage plans to provide that coverage – a shift that has implications both for retirees and for federal spending, finds a new KFF analysis.
Nearly all enrollees in Medicare Advantage plans sponsored by the seven largest firms in the market are in a plan that offers some vision, hearing, fitness, and/or dental benefits. Other benefits, including over the counter, remote access technologies, meals, acupuncture and transportation, vary widely across firms, and in-home support services, bathroom safety, Part B rebates, telemonitoring and caregiver support are relatively uncommon
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