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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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Medicare has lifted several restrictions on who can receive telehealth and the types of services they can receive via telehealth during the COVID-19 public health emergency. This post discusses the possibilities and limits of telehealth for older adults, based on findings from the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll.
There is ongoing discussion as to whether Congress should waive COVID-19 treatment costs. To inform these discussions, this analysis examines the extent of health care cost-related problems among Medicare beneficiaries. The analysis is based on a composite measure of cost-related burdens that includes problems getting care due to cost, delays seeking care due to cost, and problems paying medical bills among people with Medicare.
With lowering prescription drug costs a top priority for Americans, the Trump Administration, presidential candidates, members of Congress, and several states are proposing to allow the importation of drugs from abroad, chiefly Canada. The idea of allowing drugs to be imported from Canada and other countries is popular with Americans across the political spectrum, but has yet to be implemented due to concerns about safety, and strong opposition from the drug industry. A new KFF…
State policy choices about Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) shape these benefits in important ways for the seniors and people with disabilities who rely on them to live independently in the community. This issue brief presents the latest data from the KFF's annual survey of Medicaid HCBS program policies in all 50 states and DC.
Medicaid continues to be the primary payer for home and community-based services (HCBS) that help seniors and people with cognitive, physical, and mental health disabilities and chronic illnesses with self-care and household activities. This issue brief presents Medicaid HCBS enrollment and spending data from KFF's annual state survey and includes tables with detailed state-level data.
In response to higher drug spending growth and heightened attention to drug prices, policymakers have proposed a variety of policy initiatives to lower the cost of prescription drugs in Medicare. This brief examines in detail the range of proposals offered by the Trump Administration and members of Congress for lowering the cost of prescription drugs, their known effects on the federal budget, and their potential implications for beneficiaries and other stakeholders.
Two initiatives that for years have helped shift Medicaid enrollees away from nursing homes in favor of long-term care at home and in the community face year-end deadlines that could undercut that trend, according to two new KFF issue briefs. While there does not appear to be substantive disagreement over the initiatives like there is with many other federal health programs, their expiration is coming at a time when Congress is engaged in a contentious…
Medicaid’s Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration has helped seniors and people with disabilities move from institutions to the community by providing enhanced federal matching funds to states since 2007. The program operates in 44 states and has served over 90,000 people as of June 2018. The program is credited with helping many states establish formal institution to community transition programs that did not previously exist by enabling them to develop the necessary service and…
To financially qualify for Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS), an individual must have a low income and limited assets. In response to concerns that these rules could leave a spouse without adequate means of support when a married individual needs LTSS, Congress created the spousal impoverishment rules in 1988. Originally, these rules required states to protect a portion of a married couple’s income and assets to provide for the “community spouse’s” living expenses when…
This issue brief provides an overview of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit plan landscape for 2020, with a focus on stand-alone drug plans, the largest segment of the Part D market. It includes national and state-level data on plan availability, premiums, benefit design, cost sharing, information about premium-free plans for low-income beneficiaries, and information about the national Part D plans available in 2020.
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