Health Costs

Prices for medical services typically rise more quickly than the broader economy, but the reverse has been true recently as general inflation rose rapidly. This analysis finds that overall prices grew by 6% in February 2023 from the previous year, while prices for medical care increased only 2.3%.

With the high costs of emergency department visits of significant importance to consumers and policymakers, this analysis examines claims data from privately insured individuals with large employer health plans, to examine the role that facility fees play in rising cost of emergency care.

This analysis finds that, among people with large employer health plans, those with an obesity diagnosis on average have higher total and out-of-pocket spending than those without an obesity diagnosis. It also examines the cost of common surgical and pharmacological treatments for obesity. 

This data note estimates that the value of tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals was $28 billion in 2020. This amount exceeds estimated charity care costs among nonprofit hospitals in 2020 ($16 billion), though charity care represents only a portion of the community benefits reported by nonprofit hospitals.

Editor’s Note: The press release was updated on March 27, 2023, to reflect corrections in the underlying analysis, resulting in a modest increase in the total estimated value of tax exemption, from $27.6 from $28.1 billion. The tax-exempt status of the nation’s nonprofit hospitals collectively was worth about $28 billion…

This analysis illustrates the potential total cost of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, based on their publicly-announced expected prices, once they enter the U.S. commercial market. It compares the average price paid by the federal government for the COVID-19 bivalent boosters to the estimated average commercial prices across different scenarios.

In a months-long project, KFF’s Kaiser Health News correspondent Brett Kelman joined forces with CBS News National Consumer Investigative Correspondent Anna Werner to investigate an unregulated dental device that is at the heart of numerous accounts of pain and disfigurement. At least 10,000 dental patients have been fitted with the…

This analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker uses claims data from private, large employer-based plan to examine trends in complexity coding across outpatient practice settings from 2004 to 2021. It finds a trend toward higher complexity codes that contributes to higher outpatient spending.

Rural hospitals fared worse financially in states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act than in states that expanded Medicaid, a new KFF analysis finds. Nearly one third of all rural hospitals nationally are in the 11 states that have not approved the expansion of…