Health Costs

In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explores the state of consumer protections in health care and explains why, even with consumer frustration clear, Congress is unlikely to pursue major new health insurance protections but there could be some modest steps.

The Health Spending Explorer on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker helps users examine five decades worth of numbers documenting expenditures by federal and local governments, private insurers, and individuals on 15 categories of health services, including hospitals, physician and clinic care, and prescription drugs.

This analysis finds that Medicare’s negotiated prices for 10 high-expenditure prescription drugs are lower than what private Medicare drug plans had been paying, but still much higher than the prices available in 11 other wealthy nations.. It is available on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.

This data note examines trends in hospital margins from 2018 through 2023 and how operating margins varied across different types of hospitals in 2023. It shows the industry overall experienced a rebound in 2023 after margins fell sharply the previous year, though some hospitals – particularly those in rural areas and those who see many Medicaid patients – continue to struggle.

A new issue brief based on focus groups conducted by KFF among NHPI adults living in Hawaii and the continental U.S. highlights barriers NHPI people face when accessing health care, including geographic isolation, limited system capacity, and language access. In their own words, participants describe both positive and negative experiences in health care settings and discuss concerns about mental health in their communities.

This policy watch examines the implications of new proposed regulations that would allow Medicare and require Medicaid to cover drugs used to treat obesity, including a relatively new class of highly effective but costly drugs known as GLP-1s.

In this column, KFF president and CEO Drew Altman explores why health costs weigh heavily among voters’ economic concerns, even in an election where health was not a flashpoint. The need to reframe health as a pocketbook issue for voters will be central to the competition for the votes of working class Latino voters, two groups very focused on the cost of living.

KFF’s analysis of KFF/AP VoteCast supplemental questions shows how abortion, abortion-related ballot measures, and other health care issues influenced the 2024 election.

With the enhanced subsidies for enrollees in ACA Marketplace plans set to expire at the end of 2025, this calculator illustrates how much out-of-pocket premiums would increase if Congress does not extend the subsidies. It shows the projected premium increases based on incomes, zip code, family size and ages based on 2025 ACA Marketplace premiums.