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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 analysis of preliminary rate filings from 318 insurers across all 50 states and DC finds that small businesses with Affordable Care Act (ACA)-compliant plans could face a median premium increase of 11% for 2026.
To provide historical context for how changes to Medicaid spending may impact national health spending trends, this brief explores how Medicaid spending contributes to national health spending and how different service areas contribute to Medicaid costs.
Some insurers in the ACA’s small group market are citing tariffs, particularly those affecting prescriptions drugs, as a reason for higher-than-expected premium increases.
A new analysis shows that individuals with employer insurance could save 41% on their out-of-pocket spending for asthma and COPD inhalers through manufacturer savings. In response to a U.S. Senate investigation into inhaler costs, 3 drug makers voluntarily capped out-of-pocket costs on their brand-name asthma and COPD inhalers.
This chart collection explores how health spending is expected to grow in coming years, with a look at growth in prescription drug spending, out-of-pocket spending, and related trends.
In announcing these changes, CMS states that it is “facilitating the Part D program’s return to operating under regular market conditions.” Increasingly, however, these regular conditions appear unfavorable to the ongoing stability of the stand-alone prescription drug plan market, further tilting the playing field towards Medicare Advantage.
Voluntary efforts by drug companies to lower prices on selected medications, such as this new discounted price for Eliquis and previous price reductions on certain insulin products, could expand access to lower-priced drugs for some patients, but are not likely to improve prescription drug affordability in the U.S. on a widespread basis.
The Medicare Part D program provides an outpatient prescription drug benefit to more than 50 million older adults and people with long-term disabilities in Medicare who enroll in private plans, including stand-alone prescription drug plans (PDPs) to supplement traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans (MA-PDs) that include drug coverage and other Medicare-covered benefits. This brief analyzes Medicare Part D enrollment and costs in 2025 and trends over time, based on data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
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.
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