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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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How Unaffordable is Health Care and What Can We Do About It?

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On Tuesday, July 21, three experts joined Health Wonk Shop series moderator Larry Levitt in an hour-long discussion of health care affordability. During the discussion, panelists considered affordability from a variety of perspectives, including how to define affordability and the question of affordability for whom, how to measure it, and what can be done to address affordability and the underlying cost of health care.

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  • Assessing Congressional Budget Office Estimates of the Cost and Coverage Implications of Health Reform Proposals

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief explains key elements of the Congressional Budget Office's estimates of the major health reform bills pending in Congress, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). Throughout the health reform debate, CBO has analyzed these and other bills and provided projections of the costs and savings to the federal government associated with the plans over a 10-year period, as well as…

  • Toplines: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — November 2009

    Poll Finding

    This document contains the toplines from the November Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted November 5 through November 12, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (802) and cell phone (401, including 112 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of…

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — November 2009

    Poll Finding

    The November Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows little movement in measures of public opinion about health reform from recent months. Among the new findings is a ranking of the public's top priorities from among a list of elements of the legislation. There were both similarities and differences in priorities across partisan groups: while assuring the availability of affordable plans ranked in the top three priorities for Democrats, Republicans and independents, deficit neutrality ranked in the…

  • Key Findings: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — November 2009

    Poll Finding

    This document contains the key findings from the November Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted November 5 through November 12, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (802) and cell phone (401, including 112 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin…

  • Pulling it Together: The “Third School” for Controlling Health Care Costs?

    Perspective

    For as long as I have been in the field, there have been two dominant schools of thought about how to control health care costs. One school, The Regulators, believed that the best way to slow increasing costs was to control the total resources going into the health care system: putting limits on the supply of medical professionals, technology and facilities; setting payment rates; or putting enough purchasing power in the hands of government to…

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — October 2009

    Feature

    The October Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds public support for health reform unchanged since last month, with more in favor than opposed. Fifty-five percent of Americans believe that it is more important than ever to take on health care reform now, while 41 percent say the country cannot afford it right now. The survey also shows about half of the public believes that if reform passes, help for the uninsured and changes in insurance market…

  • The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief provides a brief overview of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, including a discussion of how the program would be financed and whom it is intended to reach. The paper was released as part of a Kaiser briefing about the act, a component of two leading health reform bills that would establish a national voluntary insurance program to allow for voluntary pre-financing of long-term care through payroll deductions and…

  • The Sleeper in Health Reform: Long-Term Care and the CLASS Act

    Event Date:
    Event

    The Kaiser Family Foundation briefing examines a little-noticed but major provision in two leading health reform bills that would change the way that the U.S. pays for long-term care. The provision, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, would establish a national voluntary insurance program that would allow for voluntary pre-financing of long-term care through payroll deductions and then provide a cash benefit to purchase services. The briefing included a summary…

  • Changes in Health Insurance Coverage, 2007-2008: Early Impact of the Recession

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief examines trends in health insurance coverage from 2007 to 2008, a period marked by the start of a deep recession. It finds that the share of the nonelderly population covered by employer-provided insurance declined, the share covered by public programs increased and the number of uninsured people continued to rise. Notably, the economic downturn affected health insurance coverage differently for adults compared to children. The increase of 1.5 million in the number…

  • 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)