Who is Most Likely to Have High Prescription Drug Costs?
This slideshow explores prescription drug spending for people who are covered by large employer health plans.
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 slideshow explores prescription drug spending for people who are covered by large employer health plans.
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.
Among the 167 million people with employer-sponsored insurance in 2022, 3.4 million used at least one of the first 10 drugs identified for Medicare price negotiations, according to a new analysis. The most used drug for people with employer-sponsored health insurance was Jardiance, a drug used to treat diabetes and heart failure, which was taken by more than 911,000 enrollees. The analysis uses the Merative MarketScan 2022 commercial claims to estimate the number of enrollees…
More than two years ago President Biden signed into law Medicare drug pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. KFF's September Health Tracking Poll examines voter's views on these provisions and finds that large majorities of voters are unaware of the provisions despite reporting support for them.
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.
Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage is available for people with Medicare who enroll in private plans, either a stand-alone prescription drug plan (PDP) for people in traditional Medicare, or a Medicare Advantage plan that covers all Medicare benefits, including prescription drugs (MA-PD). This issue brief provides an overview of Part D plan availability and premiums in 2024 and key trends over time.
As the Build Back Better Act shifts from the House to the Senate, there’s considerable interest in provisions that would lower the cost of prescription drugs. The House-passed bill would allow the federal government to negotiate prices for some high-cost drugs in Medicare, and set a hard cap on out-of-pocket drug spending for Medicare Part D enrollees. For people with Medicare and private insurance, the legislation would limit annual increases in drug prices and cap…
With the Biden administration’s announcement of the first 10 drugs to be negotiated for Medicare as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), an array of legal challenges from the pharmaceutical industry is potentially the biggest obstacle to implementation. On Tuesday, September 12, two legal experts and a health policy expert joined Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, for a 45-minute discussion about the legal issues underpinning these lawsuits and how…
About half of adults are interested in taking prescription weight loss drugs. though interest drops when presented with obstacles or drawbacks. Many adults struggle with affording prescription drugs and say there should be more price regulation. Few are aware of provisions in the 2023 Inflation Reduction Act aimed at lowering the drug price for Medicare beneficiaries
Nearly half (45%) of the public are at least somewhat interested in taking a prescription weight-loss drug, including many who say they only want to lose a little weight, though many people lose interest when presented with potential financial and medical drawbacks, the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll reveals.The poll gauges the public’s interest in using prescription drugs to lose weight as a relatively new class of drugs, initially approved to treat diabetes, is garnering…
© 2026 KFF