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

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

1,081 - 1,090 of 1,603 Results

  • Snapshots: Wages & Benefits: A Long-Term View

    Issue Brief

    Recent polls show that a substantial portion of families worry about whether their incomes will keep pace with rising prices generally and whether they will have to pay more for health care or health insurance.1 This concern about the cost of health insurance may result in part from the rapid increases in the costs of work-based health insurance in recent years: between 1999 and 2009, health insurance premiums rose 131%, a much faster rate of increase…

  • Key Findings: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 – April 2008

    Poll Finding

    This document presents key findings from the April 2008 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008, which tracks changes in the saliency of health as a political and policy priority, what the public’s priorities are for a health reform plan, and whether any candidates are breaking through with the public with their health reform plans.  Key Findings (.pdf)

  • Medical Liability Reforms: Comparison of the Candidates’ Proposals

    Fact Sheet

    Medical Liability Reforms: Comparison of Candidate's Proposals   Bush-Cheney1 Kerry-Edwards2 Supports a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages and a reasonable cap on punitive damages. Supports limiting a party's share of total damages to their proportionate share of blame for the injury inflicted. Supports action to allow providers to review best practices without fear of litigation. Opposes capping damages. Supports limiting lawsuits to cases where a qualified specialist determines a reasonable claim exists. Supports sanctions for…

  • Next Steps in Covering Uninsured Children: Findings from the Kaiser Survey of Children’s Health Coverage

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief provides key findings from the Kaiser Survey of Children's Health Coverage, including that many low- and middle-income working families with an uninsured child do not have access to employer-sponsored health insurance. The telephone survey of parents that was conducted in 2007 to learn more about children’s access to coverage and care and the health care cost-related pressures facing their families. Issue Brief (.pdf)

  • Snapshots from the Kitchen Table: Family Budgets and Health Care

    Report

    This report from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) illustrates the financial struggles of many families in the United States and shows the central role of health care costs and coverage in a household's economic stability. The report, , is based on interviews with 27 families from six cities across the U.S.. It finds pervasive uncertainty over job security and households teetering on the financial brink, stretching to pay for…

  • Chartpack: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — February 2009

    Poll Finding

    This document contains findings presented in charts from the February 2009 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. The survey was conducted February 3 through February 12, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,204 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (903) and cell phone (301, including 123 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus…

  • Section 12: Employer Opinions and Health Management Programs

    Report

    Exhibit 12.1 Exhibit 12.6 Exhibit 12.2 Exhibit 12.7 Exhibit 12.3 Exhibit 12.8 Exhibit 12.4 Exhibit 12.9 Exhibit 12.5   12 Kaiser Family Foundation, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Health Insurance Coverage in America, 2002 Data Update, December 2003. 13 These answers are not exclusive: 11% of firms that shopped switched both carrier and type of health plan offered. 

  • What’s in There? The New Health Reform Law and Private Insurance

    Event Date:
    Event

    This briefing focuses on how the reform law affects access to private coverage, including the new federal high-risk pools, tax credits for small businesses, health insurance exchanges, the individual mandate and employer obligations. This briefing, cosponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Family Foundation, explored these and other issues. For more information, please visit Alliance's event page. Full Video    Speakers for this session: The panel is co-moderated by Diane Rowland of…

  • Rate Review: Spotlight on State Efforts to Make Health Insurance More Affordable

    Other Post

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act creates a new federal role to examine “unreasonable increases” in the premiums charged for certain individual and small group health plans. Under the health reform law, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will work with state insurance departments to conduct an annual review of unreasonable rate increases, and insurers must provide justification for such increases to HHS and to the public via their websites. The…