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.
In all but four states, insurance companies can deny private Medigap insurance policies to seniors after their initial enrollment in Medicare because of a pre-existing medical condition, such as diabetes or heart disease, except under limited, qualifying circumstances, a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds.
This analysis documents the different sources of coverage among people with Medicare and examines variation in beneficiary characteristics by source of coverage.
The House-passed legislation to repeal the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) includes a provision that would prohibit Medicare supplemental insurance (Medigap) policies from covering the Part B deductible for people who become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2020.
The annual blitz of ads for Medicare Advantage plans has become a rite of fall, as health insurers, brokers and other third parties seek to court enrollees for these private plans, which are offered to the 65 million people with Medicare during the program’s open enrollment season.
Today, 60 million people, including 51 million older adults and 9 million younger adults with disabilities, rely on Medicare for their health insurance coverage, but many Medicare beneficiaries rely on other sources of coverage to supplement their Medicare benefits. This data note explores sources of supplemental coverage among beneficiaries in traditional Medicare, based on data from the 2016 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.
In this new policy insight, Tricia Neuman examines current rules that may discourage seniors from switching from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare. The issue is explored through the lens of a 67-year-old beneficiary who faced difficult financial and health coverage choices in the aftermath of a serious biking accident.
In this new policy insight, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Tricia Neuman examines current rules that may discourage seniors from switching from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare.Traditional Medicare…Disadvantaged? explores this issue through the lens of a 67-year old Boomer who faced difficult financial and health coverage choices in the aftermath of a serious mountain biking accident.
To capture the state of television marketing activities and consider the implications for people with Medicare, KFF analyzed ad data compiled by the Wesleyan Media Project, that were obtained from Vivvix (formerly Kantar) CMAG, a data analytics and consulting firm, and were coded by the Wesleyan Media Project in collaboration with KFF. The data set included all English-language TV ads that aired across national and local markets on broadcast television or national cable, from October 1st, 2022, through December 7th, 2022, the period that includes the Medicare open enrollment period for coverage in 2023.
This report examines an approach to reforming Medicare that has been a focus of Congressional hearings and featured in several broader debt reduction and entitlement reform proposals, and was included in the June 2016 House Republican health plan. The analysis models four different options for modifying Medicare's benefit design, all of which include a single deductible, modified cost-sharing requirements, a new cost-sharing limit, and a prohibition on first-dollar Medigap coverage. The analysis models the expected effects on out-of-pocket spending by beneficiaries in traditional Medicare, and assesses how each option is expected to affect spending by the federal government, state Medicaid programs, employers, and other payers, assuming full implementation in 2018.
On March 26, 2015, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which would replace the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, among other changes; the bill is currently pending in the U.S. Senate. H.R. 2 includes a provision that would prohibit Medicare supplemental insurance (Medigap) policies from covering the Part B deductible for people who become eligible for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020. This data note looks at the number and share of “new” Medicare beneficiaries who would be affected by the Medigap provision in H.R. 2, if it had been implemented in 2010, using the most current data sources available, and examines trends in Medigap enrollment among new beneficiaries since 2000.
© 2026 KFF