Prescription Drugs

This Health Policy 101 chapter explores the performance of the U.S. health system on a number of cost, outcomes, and quality measures by comparing it with those in similarly large and wealthy OECD nations. It highlights that despite significant spending, Americans have shorter life expectancies and encounter more barriers to health care, influenced by both the health system’s structure and broader socioeconomic factors.

This brief examines the implications of rising prescriptions for costly GLP-1 drugs for state Medicaid programs as more states consider covering the drugs for weight loss. It examines recent trends in Medicaid prescriptions and gross spending on GLP-1s, and explores the potential implications of expanding coverage obesity drugs for Medicaid programs.

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 recent changes under the Inflation Reduction Act.

This policy watch examines the implications of new proposed regulations that would allow Medicare and require Medicaid to cover drugs used to treat obesity, including a relatively new class of highly effective but costly drugs known as GLP-1s.

To understand the role of Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plans in serving rural Medicare beneficiaries, this data note analyzes 2025 Part D enrollment in PDPs and Medicare Advantage drug plans by geographic area nationally and at the state level.

In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman describes how Vice President Harris has reframed health as a pocketbook economic issue, which aligns with voters’ concern about health care costs.

This brief examines the share of Medicare beneficiaries who reviewed their coverage and compared plans during the open enrollment period for 2022 (that takes place in the Fall of 2021), and who made use of Medicare’s official information resources, as well as variations by demographic groups. Overall, nearly 7 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries did not compare their own source of Medicare coverage with other Medicare options offered in their area.

This policy watch examines monthly premiums for Medicare Part D stand-alone drug plans in 2025, as changes to the Part D benefit are being implemented in 2025, including a new $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug spending.

In a new Trump administration executive order, the Secretary of HHS is directed to work with Congress to implement a change in law to delay negotiation of so-called “small molecule” drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program for an additional 4 years. This brief analyzes how many of the drugs previously selected for negotiation would not have been eligible if this policy had been in place at the time.