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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.”

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  • What New Data Tell Us About Doctor Choice

    News Release

    Is choice of doctors eroding? Drew Altman explores the rhetoric versus reality and why the issue resonates with Americans, in his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank. All previous columns by Drew Altman are online.

  • High Health-Care Prices: More Talk Than Action  

    News Release

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explores how price is the major factor that distinguishes the cost of our health care system from those in other developed nations, yet most efforts in the U.S. to address health-care costs don't focus on price much at all. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.

  • New Report on the “Rising Cost of Living Longer” Details Medicare Spending by Age

    News Release

    A new report, The Rising Cost of Living Longer: Analysis of Medicare Spending by Age for Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare, from the Kaiser Family Foundation takes a detailed look at per person Medicare spending by age and by service among the nearly 30 million people covered by traditional Medicare in 2011

  • Harvard and Growth in Health Care Cost Sharing

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explains why recent discussion of Harvard University’s introduction of new health insurance cost sharing measures amounted to “making a mountain out of a mole hill”.

  • Majority of Public Says Congress Should Act to Close Gaps if the Supreme Court Bars Financial Help for Purchasing Insurance in States Relying on healthcare.gov; Most in Potentially Affected States Want Their State To Set Up Its Own Marketplace if Needed

    News Release

    Views Mixed on Changes to Definition of Full-Time Work For Employer Mandate, with More Opposed than Supportive, And a Third Saying They Don't Know Enough to Say Public Remains Divided Over Next Steps for the Affordable Care Act, Though Most Expect Major or Minor Changes under GOP Congress this Year Though few Americans are paying attention to the pending Supreme Court case over whether the health care law says that people in all states can…

  • The Cost of Care with Marketplace Coverage

    Issue Brief

    This brief and accompanying slides examine cost sharing - deductibles, copayments and coinsurance - in 2015 insurance plans sold on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) federally-facilitated marketplaces. The analysis looks at out-of-pocket limits, as well as cost sharing for hospital stays, physician visits, emergency room visits, and prescription drugs, for plans across the metal levels (platinum, gold, silver and bronze).

  • Medicare’s Role in Health-Care Payment Reform

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explores whether Secretary Burwell's announcement this week about Medicare's payment reform initiative is another sign that the public sector is becoming the engine driving payment and delivery reform.

  • Medicare Spending Peaks at Age 96

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses the implications of a Kaiser finding: per capita Medicare spending peaks at age 96, and the main reason is not end-of-life care.

  • Medicare Spending Peaks at Age 96  

    News Release

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses the implications of a Kaiser finding: per capita Medicare spending peaks at age 96, and the main reason is not end-of-life care. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.

  • Trends in Medicaid Spending Leading up to ACA Implementation

    Issue Brief

    This paper presents data on Medicaid spending during the years leading up to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It uses administrative data to first examine overall spending trends and trends by service type. We then draw on additional data to analyze per enrollee spending growth during this period, both by service type and by eligibility group, to understand what drove Medicaid spending.