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 analysis of data from KFF’s Survey on Racism, Discrimination, and Health shows Black women are more likely than other groups to report being treated unfairly by a health care provider in recent years because of their race and ethnicity and that these experiences have health consequences.
In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explores the state of consumer protections in health care and explains why, even with consumer frustration clear, Congress is unlikely to pursue major new health insurance protections but there could be some modest steps.
This analysis provides a detailed look at per person Medicare spending on the nearly 30 million beneficiaries over age 65 who are enrolled in the traditional Medicare program. Among the key findings of the report is that per person spending rises with age, peaking at age 96. But this rise is not entirely explained by Medicare spending on end of life care, which declines with age. What Medicare spends money on also changes as beneficiaries age. Hospital care is the largest component of Medicare spending throughout the age curve, up to age 100, but there is less spending on physician services and more on home health, skilled nursing and hospice care as beneficiaries age.
This perspective provides additional information on state plans related to the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) primary care rate increase after the 100% federal financing ends December 31, 2014. The data in this report were collected as part of KCMU’s Annual Medicaid Budget Survey, conducted by Health Management Associates with the support of the National Association of Medicaid Directors,
With the FDA authorization of both Moderna and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children between the ages of 6 months and 5, the last major phase of the U.S. vaccination roll-out is underway. This brief provides an overview of the characteristics of children under the age of 5 and discusses some issues to consider in rolling out vaccination to this age group.
Telehealth use skyrocketed during the early months of the pandemic. While it has since decreased somewhat from that high, it still represents a much more substantial share of health care than before COVID, this KFF-Epic Research analysis finds.
In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt examines how the No Surprises Act that prohibits unexpected out-of-network charges for patients could lead to lower payment rates and revenues for some doctors and other care providers.
This brief examines the share of non-pediatric office-based physicians accepting new patients with Medicare or private insurance and how these rates have changed over time and vary by physician specialties, geographic areas, and physician and practice characteristics across Medicare and private insurance. This analysis further examines the extent to which non-pediatric physicians are opting out of Medicare, by specialty and state.
As part of the Kaiser Family Foundation's biennial National Survey of Physicians, the Foundation examined doctors views of their profession. The survey found that most physicians say the overall morale of physicians has decreased in the last five years.
Changes in Medicare’s private contracting laws could have significant implications for beneficiaries, doctors, and the Medicare program. This brief summarizes the three options that physicians and practitioners currently have for charging Medicare patients, explains how private contracting works in Medicare under current law, and reviews current proposals on changes to private contracting in Medicare, as well as their implications for patients, physicians, and the Medicare program.
© 2025 KFF