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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.
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KFF’s Survey of Medicaid Financial Eligibility for Older Adults & People with Disabilities, conducted in March 2025 by KFF and Watts Health Policy Consulting, provides a baseline of Medicaid eligibility as states return to normal operations after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and ahead of potential changes to the Medicaid program.
This issue brief provides information about some of the services Medicaid provides in assisted living facilities from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS home care programs.
Nearly 1 in 4 Medicaid enrollees are eligible for the program because they are ages 65 and older or have a disability, and they have higher per-enrollee costs than other enrollees. Proposals to limit federal spending on Medicaid may create incentives for states to drop or reduce their eligibility or coverage for seniors and people with disabilities in response to fewer federal revenues. Considering the proposed reductions in Medicaid spending, this issue brief describes Medicaid eligibility pathways, enrollment, and spending among people eligible through the age and disability-related pathways.
This issue brief provides new information about family caregivers from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS programs, including a discussion of paying family caregivers, self-direction, and supports available for family caregivers.
KFF Health News’ Navigating Aging columnist, Judith Graham, spent six months this year talking to older adults who live alone by choice or by circumstance — most commonly, a spouse’s death. They shared their hopes and fears, challenges, and strategies for aging solo. KFF Health News and The John A. Hartford Foundation held a 90-minute interactive, virtual event called “Going It Alone." The event featured frank conversation with five of the people featured in Graham’s series.
This data note examines the characteristics of nursing facilities and the people living in them with data from Nursing Home Compare, a publicly available dataset that provides a snapshot of information on quality of care in each nursing facility, and CASPER (Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports), a dataset that includes detailed metrics collected by surveyors during nursing facility inspections.
Medicare Part D is a voluntary outpatient prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare provided through private plans, including stand-alone prescription drug plans and Medicare Advantage plans that offer drug coverage. This analysis provides an overview of Medicare Part D plan availability, premiums, and cost sharing in 2025 and key trends over time.
This brief provides an overview of the Medicare Advantage plans that are available for 2025 and key trends over time. The average Medicare beneficiary will have the option of 34 Medicare Advantage prescription drug (MA-PD) plans in 2025, 2 fewer than the 36 options available in 2024. The average Medicare beneficiary can choose among plans offered by 8 firms in 2025, the same as in 2024.
This brief provides an overview of premiums and benefits in Medicare Advantage plans that are available for 2025 and key trends over time. Two-thirds of all Medicare Advantage plans with Part D prescription drug coverage (MA-PDs) (67%) will charge no premium (other than the Part B premium) in 2025, similar to 2024 (66%). Nearly all Medicare Advantage plans (97% or more) are offering vision, dental and hearing, as they have in previous years. However, the share of plans offering certain benefits has declined, such as over-the-counter benefits (85% in 2024 vs. 72% in 2025), remote access technologies (74% in 2024 vs. 53% in 2025), meal benefits (72% in 2024 vs. 65% in 2025) and transportation (36% in 2024 vs. 29% in 2025).
This data note provides new information about waiting lists for Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services, including a discussion of why waiting lists are an incomplete measure of unmet need and why they are not necessarily comparable across states or over time.
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