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.
This primer providers an overview of certain delivery system reform models that are being examined in traditional Medicare, and explains model goals, financial incentives, potential beneficiary implications, and results so far with respect to Medicare spending and care quality. The primer discusses accountable care organizations, medical homes and bundled payments.
Medicare, the nation’s federal health insurance program for 57 million people age 65 and over and younger people with disabilities, often plays a major role in federal health policy and budget discussions. Medicare is likely to be back on the federal policy agenda as Congress debates repealing and replacing the ACA, and also if policymakers turn their attention to reducing entitlement spending as part of efforts to reduce the growing federal budget deficit and debt. This issue brief presents 10 facts and figures about Medicare’s financial status today and the outlook for the future.
In this Washington Post op-ed, Drew Altman discusses how Republicans' ideas to change Medicaid and Medicare and repeal the Affordable Care Act would fundamentally change the federal role in health, calling it: the biggest change in health we are NOT debating.
This short Kaiser Family Foundation documentary profiles the experiences of three Medicare families trying to pay for their health care costs with other household spending. The families are among 16 featured in a companion report examining the role Medicare now plays in the lives of beneficiaries and the challenges many face in paying for their health care and other living expenses on a fixed budget.
This policy insight examines the unexpected drop in Medicare's per-beneficiary spending projections and its implications for beneficiaries and the program's future.
This issue brief explains provisions in current law that shield beneficiaries from unexpected and confusing charges when they see physicians and practitioners—namely, the participating provider program, limitation on balance billing, and conditions on private contracting for doctors who opt out of Medicare or join “concierge” practices. It also analyzes the implications of modifying these provisions for beneficiaries, providers, and the Medicare program.
While the Census Bureau’s official poverty measure shows 9 percent of seniors nationally live in poverty, the share climbs to about one in seven seniors (15 percent) under the Bureau’s alternative Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account out-of-pocket health expenses and geographic differences in the cost of living. Produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Old and Poor: America's Forgotten provides a portrait of seniors who are living in poverty, in both urban and rural areas across the United States.
A new KFF poll finds that many older voters are unaware of the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that for the first time requires the federal government to negotiate the price of some prescription drugs in the Medicare program, a key campaign issue for President Joe Biden.
For many years, the Kaiser Family Foundation has been tracking public opinion on the idea of national health plan. Since the 2016 Democratic presidential primary and Sen.
As part of several debt-reduction and Medicare-reform proposals, some policymakers propose to prohibit Medicare supplemental insurance policies (known as Medigap) from covering all of enrollees' out-of-pocket Medicare costs, which some believe leads to higher use of services and higher Medicare spending.
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