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Democrats Hold a Nearly 2-to-1 Advantage Over Republicans on Handling the Cost of Health Care

Poll: Cost of Health Care and Gas Top Voters’ Midterm Concerns; Democrats Hold Significant Advantage on Health Care Costs and Cost of Living 

With the 2026 midterms about a month away, health care costs remain tied with gas as voters’ top midterm concerns and the Democrats hold a clear edge over the Republicans Party on who voters trust to handle many top electoral issues, including the cost of health care and the cost of living. Two-thirds of U.S. adults now favor Medicare-for-all, a new high in KFF Polling, but support shifts when competing claims from critics and proponents are heard.

New and noteworthy

Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs

This data note reviews our recent polling data that finds that many Americans struggle to afford many aspects of health care, including disproportionate shares of uninsured adults, Black and Hispanic adults and those with lower incomes.

Health System Tracker

Is This A Healthcare Economy?

Health care employment has grown faster than other sectors of the economy, with jobs in physician offices, hospitals, outpatient care centers, home health, and other settings increasing over the past year even as the rest of the job market plateaued. 

Cumulative percent change in health sector and non-health sector employment, January 1990 - August 2026

What Are the Recent Trends in Health Sector Employment

Health care employment continues to grow even as hiring across other sectors has plateaued. The health sector added nearly 379,000 jobs over the past year, a 2% increase, compared with just 0.2% growth in other non-farm employment, with outpatient care among the fastest-growing health care settings.

How TrumpRx Brand-Name Drug Prices Compare

TrumpRx prices for brand-name drugs are about as likely to be higher as lower compared to average prices in other wealthy countries, according to an analysis that compares 32 brand-name drugs.

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  • Nov. 10 Web Briefing to Release the 2021 Employer Health Benefits Survey Capturing Trends in Offer Rate, Premiums, Cost Sharing and Benefit Changes Related to COVID-19

    Event Date:
    Event

    KFF released its 2021 benchmark Employer Health Benefits Survey via a public web briefing on Nov. 10, 2021. This 23rd annual survey provided a detailed look at the current state of employer-based coverage and trends in private health insurance for both large and small firms. Fielded among a nationally representative sample of nearly 1,700 employers with at least three workers, the survey captures average premiums for workers and employers and their rate of increase; average…

  • Analysis: Hospital Price Transparency Data Lacks Standardization, Limiting Its Use to Insurers, Employers, and Consumers

    News Release

    In spite of a new price transparency rule that requires hospitals to publish the prices of common health services, comparing prices across hospitals remains challenging due to limited compliance with the law and a lack of standardization in the available data, a new KFF analysis finds. The federal rule, which went into effect on January 1, 2021, aims to lift the veil on how much health plans pay hospitals for health services. To be compliant,…

  • No Surprises Act Quiz

    Feature

    A new federal law provides new consumer protections against "surprise" medical bills beginning this year. Test your knowledge about its provisions with this 12-question quiz.

  • Closing the Long-Term Care Funding Gap: The Challenge of Private Long-Term Care Insurance

    Issue Brief

    This policy brief from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured examines the fundamentals of private long-term care insurance. It describes the results of a study exploring how consumers buy policies, how much policies cost and how they work, and what regulations exist to protect consumers. It also discusses some key challenges that policymakers face when considering whether to enlarge the role of private long-term care insurance in financing long-term care. Policy Brief (.pdf)

  • Pulling it Together: The Sleeper in Health Reform

    Perspective

    The health reform legislation currently being crafted on Capitol Hill is undeniably complex.  To oversimplify slightly it can be boiled down into four parts: coverage (subsidies for private coverage and Medicaid expansions); delivery and payment reforms; insurance market reforms and regulations; and prevention, with each broad category containing a range of specific policy proposals and ideas. There’s been a lot of discussion so far about coverage expansions and how to pay for them, as well…

  • Explaining Health Care Reform: What is Comparative Effectiveness Research?

    Issue Brief

    The brief examines current funding for comparative effectiveness research, the provisions included in the current health reform legislation, and issues related to which treatments that might be studied, whether and how to weigh costs of care, and how such findings will be used and shared with health-care practitioners and the public. It is part of the Foundation's series of Explaining Health Reform briefs on key concepts in health reform. Brief (.pdf)

  • Pulling it Together: An Actuarial Rorschach Test

    Perspective

    Drew Altman, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton My colleagues have worked on this column with me and I invited them to join me as authors. As with pretty much every other discussion of health care going back to the days of Roosevelt, the great reform debate of 2009 (and now 2010) has been distilled into an ideological battle over the role of government. A government-sponsored "public option" has been off the table for a while now,…