Home Health Costs Topics

Health Costs

The MIDTERMS

“...the search for a single top issue through polling questions — whether it’s health costs, or gas prices, or the cost of food — is artificial. People worry about and experience these costs together. There is no top issue, unless that issue is the catchall, ‘cost of living.’” — Drew Altman, KFF Founding President and CEO

Are Health Care Costs THE Top Issue for Voters?

In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, Founding President and CEO, analyzes the polling on health costs as a voting issue and concludes that there is no one top voting issue. He writes: “I have come to the conclusion that the search for a single top issue through polling questions—whether it’s health costs, or gas prices, or the cost of food—is artificial. People worry about and experience these costs together. There is no top issue, unless that issue is the catchall, “cost of living.”

Health System Tracker

Small Businesses Could See Double-Digit Premium Increases in 2027, According to Insurers’ Preliminary Rate Filings

Nearly 300 insurers offering offering health coverage to small businesses reported a median proposed premium increase of 14% for next year, according to an analysis of preliminary rate filings from all 50 states and DC.

ACA Marketplace Insurers Are Proposing a Median Premium Increase of About 15% in 2027

ACA Marketplaces insurers are proposing a median premium increase of 15% in 2027, according to an updated analysis of 276 insurers with publicly available filings across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In 2024, life expectancy in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 79 years but remained years behind the average in comparable countries

Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. increased 0.6 years from 78.4 years in 2023 to 79.0 years in 2024, its highest-ever level. However, the average life expectancy in comparable countries was about 3.7 years longer than in the U.S.

Among adults 18 - 64 with private insurance, mental health and substance use treatment accounted for 10% of all overnight stays at hospitals or other medical facilities in 2023.

Using claims data from the 2023 Merative MarketScan Commercial Claims Database, this analysis describes the most common diagnoses for inpatient treatment and total associated costs, including patients’ out-of-pocket share.

New and noteworthy

How Unaffordable is Health Care and What Can We Do About It?

Event Date:

On Tuesday, July 21, three experts joined Health Wonk Shop series moderator Larry Levitt in an hour-long discussion of health care affordability. During the discussion, panelists considered affordability from a variety of perspectives, including how to define affordability and the question of affordability for whom, how to measure it, and what can be done to address affordability and the underlying cost of health care.

Latest News

More KFF Health News

Stay informed.

Get KFF's latest on Health Costs

Stay informed.

Get KFF's latest on Health Costs

View the Latest: Health Costs

Filter

List Grid

831 - 840 of 1,603 Results

  • Why Do We Hear More About High Drug Prices Than About Hospital Prices?

    Perspective

    In this JAMA Health Forum post, KFF's Larry Levitt outlines four reasons why high drug prices are in the spotlight more than hospital prices, even though hospitals accounted for 40% of the growth in national health spending from 2022 to 2024, and explores the potential for policy action to restrain them.

  • Copay Adjustment Programs: What Are They and What Do They Mean for Consumers?

    Issue Brief

    Drug makers sometimes offer copay coupons to lower consumers’ out-of-pocket costs for their brand-name prescriptions, though how private health plans treat those coupons can substantially limit their value to consumers. This issue brief provides an overview of such copay adjustment programs, stakeholder arguments for and against their use, their prevalence, and federal and state efforts to address them.

  • A Backlash Against Health Insurers, Redux

    Perspective

    In this JAMA Health Forum post, Executive Vice President Larry Levitt recalls the mid-1990s’ public backlash against Health Maintenance Organizations (commonly known as HMOs) – all of which preceded the recent outpouring of health insurance concerns – as well as how consumer protections against coverage restrictions have evolved and fallen short.

  • The Performance of the Federal Independent Dispute Resolution Process through Mid-2024

    Issue Brief

    The No Surprises Act, which was signed into law by President Trump during his first term and took effect in 2022, aims to protect consumers from certain surprise medical bills. The law established processes to keep the patient out of the payment negotiations between the provider and the plan. In the event of an unsuccessful negotiation, providers and payers enter an independent dispute resolution (IDR) process in which a designated third-party arbitrator examines eligible evidence…

  • How Much Could Medicare Beneficiaries Pay For a Hospital Stay Related to COVID-19?

    Issue Brief

    As the coronavirus continues to spread, the number of people on Medicare admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 related illness is expected to rise. We analyze how much Medicare beneficiaries could pay out-of-pocket for an inpatient hospital admission under traditional Medicare (assuming no supplemental coverage) or Medicare Advantage plans.

  • How Prepared is the U.S. to Respond to COVID-19 Relative to Other Countries?

    Issue Brief

    Compared to most similarly large and wealthy countries, the U.S. has fewer practicing physicians per capita but has a similar number of licensed nurses per capita. Looking specifically at the hospital setting, the U.S. has more hospital-based employees per capita than most other comparable countries, but nearly half of these hospital workers are non-clinical staff.