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Health Policy 101 is a comprehensive guide covering fundamental aspects of U.S. health policy and programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, employer-sponsored insurance, the uninsured population, health care costs and affordability, women's health issues, and health care politics. The Public Health chapter examines how public health is governed and delivered in the United States. It includes explanations of key public health frameworks, services, capabilities and characteristics, how the public health system works in state, local and territorial governments, and public health funding, workforce, and communication challenges in an era of declining trust.

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  • How Is The Federal Government Counting Measles Deaths?

    Policy Watch

    Recently Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., changed how the federal government tracks deaths in its official measles tally, after Pennsylvania reported four deaths. This Policy Watch reviews the two roles, strengths, and weaknesses of the two public health surveillance systems at the center of this change: the Nationally Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) and the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

  • The Public and Health (Mis)information: What Polling Tells Us about Where We’ve Been and Where We Might Be Going

    Perspective

    In this research article released online by The Journal of Health Policy, Politics and Law, KFF's Elizabeth Hamel, Alex Montero and Mollyann Brodie reflect on 30 years of public opinion data to offer perspectives on how the public accesses, evaluates, and uses health information, and what recent trends may suggest about the future of the health information (and misinformation) environment. The article examines public knowledge gaps on health and the role of partisanship in national…

  • KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust: Trust in the CDC and Views of Federal Childhood Vaccine Schedule Changes

    Poll Finding

    Weeks after the Trump administration reduced the number of childhood vaccine recommended for routine use, public trust in the CDC is at its lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic, and less than half are confident in federal agencies' ability to make such recommendations. Among those who have heard about the revised recommendations, more say they expect the changes to have a negative impact than a positive one on children’s health.

  • New KFF-Washington Post Survey Explores Parents’ Trust In, and Confusion About, Childhood Vaccines as the Trump Administration Revamps Federal Policies

    News Release

    A new KFF-Washington Post partnership survey of parents explores their experiences with and views about vaccines for their children, including a look into how they make decisions related to vaccines and where they are uncertain or confused about their safety. The poll comes as the Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to question the childhood vaccine schedule and to raise doubts about vaccine safety and effectiveness. Based on interviews…

  • Challenges for Rebuilding Trust in the CDC

    Quick Insights

    (Secretary Kennedy) has promised to restore public trust in the CDC, but our polling data suggests real challenges given how skeptical the public - and Republicans in particular - are about the agency.

  • Why Bolstering Trust in Journalism Could Help Strengthen Trust in Medicine

    Perspective

    This perspective highlights the important relationship between medicine and trust in news media and articulates three ways that clinicians, health care organizations, and journalists might begin to rebuild the foundation of trust on which both medicine and journalism rely. Co-authored by KFF's David Rousseau, Vineet M. Arora of University of Chicago Medicine, and Gary Schwitzer of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, it appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

  • What Does the Election Mean for Health Reform and Other Health Issues?

    Event Date:
    Event

    How the new health reform law is implemented, and how quickly, depend in part on the results of the November 2 election. Now that the leadership of the House will soon change hands, what might Republicans do with respect to health reform? How might Democrats respond? Apart from reform, how might other health programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP be affected by the new congressional lineup? This November 12 briefing, cosponsored by the Alliance…

  • Public Reporting of Quality Outcomes: What’s the Best Path Forward?

    Event Date:
    Event

    The Affordable Care Act aims to promote higher quality care in part by rewarding – and eventually requiring – the reporting of certain quality measures. Previous efforts suggest that public reporting can add significant value. Yet there are concerns about the best way to measure outcomes and quality, the possible unintended effects of public reporting, and whether purchasers and consumers actually use the information to make choices. Panelists at this April 27 briefing co-sponsored by…

  • Quality Care for Less Money: Can Regional Successes Go National?

    Event Date:
    Event

    On February 15, the Kaiser Family Foundation hosted an event featuring a PBS documentary with former Washington Post correspondent T.R. Reid – U.S. Health Care: The Good News – which explores efforts to provide low-cost, quality health care in the U.S. The film looks at variations in health spending across the country and showcases efficient health care delivery systems, like Grand Junction in Colorado and Group Health in Seattle, suggesting that these communities demonstrate that…