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“...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.

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  • Public Opinion Update-3006-Public-Opinion-Update

    Other Post

    Public Opinion Update Public Opinion Update Public Opinion Update THE UNINSURED The debate over how to expand health insurance coverage to the over 44 million Americans without it continues to be one of the most challenging issues facing policymakers today. This Public Opinion Update summarizes key findings from several surveys conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health and a new survey conducted by the Foundation in conjunction with the…

  • Regulation of Private Long-Term Care Insurance: Implementation Experience and Key Issues

    Report

    Regulation of Private Long-Term Care Insurance: Implementation Experience and Key Issues While private long-term care insurance (LTCI) has been available since the mid-1970s, its popularity has grown rapidly in recent years, and Congress is considering proposals that would further encourage LTCI purchase through expanded tax subsidies. Yet there has been little research on how well LTCI works and how much security it really provides. This report focuses on consumer protections for individuals buying LTCI in…

  • Managed Competition In California and Small-Group Insurance Market

    Report

    Reprinted from HEALTH AFFAIRS, Volume 16, Number 2 (March/April 1997) This paper describes the early experience of the Health Insurance Plan of California (HIPC), a small-employer purchasing cooperative established in 1993. Report: Managed Competition In California's Small-Group Insurance Market

  • Pulling it Together: Last Week’s Health Reform “Shocker”

    Perspective

    Last week we learned that health reform could cost the federal government at least a trillion dollars over ten years, and that it will be really difficult to forge bipartisan agreement on legislation and keep major interest groups on board. This obviously brought more angst to the deliberations, several Republicans seized the moment to criticize the Democrats' plans, and the press was all over it, with many commentators declaring health reform in dire straits. But…

  • Poll: Two-thirds of Voters Say a Candidate’s Position on Pre-existing Conditions is Important to their Vote, More than Say the Same about Drug Costs, ACA Repeal or Medicare-for-All

    News Release

    About two-thirds (65%) of voters say a candidate’s support for continued protections for people with pre-existing health conditions is either the “single most important factor” or “very important” to their vote in the upcoming midterms elections, finds the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll. That’s a larger share than says the same about other health care issues, including bringing down prescription drug costs (58%), repealing the Affordable Care Act (53%), stabilizing the ACA marketplaces (52%), or…

  • Implementation of Managed Care Consumer Protections in Missouri, New Jersey, Texas and Vermont Overview

    Report

    This study goes beyond the legislative debates over expanded patients' rights to explore how managed care consumer protections have actually been implemented in four states (Missouri, New Jersey, Texas & Vermont) all of which have been active in this area. The study describes the details of the reforms, the issues that have arisen in implementation, and the lessons for policymakers from the experiences of these states. The Full Report (document #1518) is available on-line. Executive…

  • Medicaid Managed Care’s Impact On Safety-Net Clinics In California

    Fact Sheet

    Medicaid Managed Care's Impact On Safety-Net Clinics In California Medicaid Managed Care's Impact On Safety-Net Clinics In California was published in the January/February 2000 issue of the journal Health Affairs. The report provides an overview of Medi-Cal Managed Care in California, and its effects on community health clinics, and related issues. In order to better understand the impact that the Medi-Cal managed care program has had on California safety-net providers, the Kaiser Family Foundation supported…

  • A Risky Proposition?  Risk-Bearing and Solvency in California’s Medical Groups — Policy Brief

    Issue Brief

    A Risky Proposition? Risk-Bearing and Solvency in California's Medical Groups -- Policy Brief A Risky Proposition? Risk-Bearing and Solvency in California's Medical Groups is an 8-page policy brief to provide information about medical groups in California, including a discussion on risk-bearing, solvency, and proposed regulatory approaches. The brief includes a variety of perspectives presented by speakers at a California Health Policy Roundtable held in Sacramento, California on July 20, 1999. Roundtable