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KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs and the Midterms

This KFF poll finds that health care costs continue to top the public’s list of affordability worries, even as concerns about gas prices have risen in recent weeks, with two-thirds of the public expressing worry over affording health care costs. Majorities say health costs will influence their vote this election. Voters favor Democrats on the issue, while Republicans hold an advantage on addressing fraud and abuse.

Affordable care act

ACA Marketplace Survey Feature Image - Website

Cost Concerns and Coverage Changes: A Follow-Up Survey of ACA Marketplace Enrollees

This KFF survey is a follow-up survey of adults who had ACA Marketplace insurance in 2025. The survey examines the cost concerns and coverage changes of Marketplace enrollees following the end of the enhanced premium tax credits and finds that half of returning enrollees say their health care costs are “a lot higher” and most expect to cut back on basic household expenses to afford coverage.

Health System Tracker

What Are the Recent Trends in Employer-Based Health Coverage? Employer-sponsored health insurance is the largest source of health coverage for people under 65, but its reach is uneven.

How Does U.S. Life Expectancy Compare to Other Countries? The life expectancy gap between the U.S. and peer countries decreased from 4.1 years in 2023 to 3.7 years in 2024 as U.S. mortality dropped.

How Does Cost Affect Access to Health Care? In 2024, about 1 in 6 adults reported delaying or not getting healthcare due to cost, including medical or mental health care.

How Does Health Spending in the U.S. Compare to Other Countries? While the U.S. still spends the most in total dollars, eight OECD nations had a higher percentage increase in per-person health spending in 2024.

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  • What is behind the recent slowdown in health spending?

    Feature

    This slideshow charts the recent slowdown in health spending in the United States and other industrialized nations. Some possible causes include economic factors and structural changes to the U.S. health system, such as higher cost sharing in private health insurance and lower payments to providers by Medicare and other public programs.

  • New Tracker Monitors the Performance of the U.S. Health System

    News Release

    The Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with the Peterson Center on Healthcare, today announced a new online hub dedicated to monitoring and assessing the performance of the U.S. health system. The Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker provides comprehensive data on how the system is performing on critical quality and cost measures, offering clear, up-to-date information on relevant trends, drivers and issues. The Tracker also will illustrate how the United States is performing relative to other countries,…

  • How has health spending changed over time?

    Feature

    This slideshow examines trends in U.S. health spending over time, including the share of household budgets devoted to health expenses and comparisons of out-of-pocket expenditures to money spent on insurance. The data shows that U.S. heath spending outpaced the country's economic growth before slowing in recent years, and that health insurance represents a growing share of total health expenditures, particularly public programs.

  • Our Fragmented Approach to Health-Care Costs

    From Drew Altman

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses this week's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report on health spending and assesses the current effort to control health-care costs.

  • What Drives Spending and Utilization on Medicaid Drug Benefits in States?

    Issue Brief

    With the approval of new specialty drugs, such as the Hepatitis C treatments Sovaldi and Harvoni, states are mindful that the cost the Medicaid prescription drug benefit could increase. To achieve savings, and improve management and health outcomes, it is important to understand which drugs are most frequently prescribed and which drive spending. Using state drug utilization data provided through the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, as well as an industry drug database, this issue brief…

  • Visualizing Health Policy: Medicare Spending: A Look at Present, Short-Term and Long-Term Trends

    Other Post

    This Visualizing Health Policy infographic with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) provides an overview of Medicare spending trends in the present, short term and long term. In the long term, Medicare spending as a share of the economy is projected to grow, and Medicare is projected to lack sufficient funds to pay all hospital bills beginning in 2030.

  • Analysis of 2016 Premium Changes in the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplaces

    Fact Sheet

    The chart and tables below present an updated analysis of changes in premiums for the lowest- and second-lowest cost silver Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans in major cities in 48 states and the District of Columbia, where we were able to find complete data on rates for all insurers. This page will be updated as complete rate information becomes available for more states. More background can be found in our earlier analysis of 2016…

  • Why Consumer Issues Are Rising on the Health Agenda

    News Release

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman examines the trends that may be leading to a rise in consumer cost issues on the health agenda. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.

  • The Diseases We Spend Our Health Dollars On

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explains how a recent Bureau of Economic Analysis report makes the nation’s health care spending more tangible by breaking it down by disease.