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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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  • Chartpack — The Public’s Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress

    Poll Finding

    Chartpack -- The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress This chartpack provides the key findings from the survey of the public's attitudes regarding the health care agenda for President Obama and the new Congress in 2009. It assesses the relative priority placed on health care by the American public as part of addressing the economic recession and as a large scale reform issue. The public's priorities for health care reform and…

  • Cost Sharing for Health Care: France, Germany, and Switzerland

    Issue Brief

    As policymakers in the United States weigh options for reform to the nation’s health care system, the level of cost sharing that consumers face when they receive services covered by their health plans is a major consideration, especially for those with serious health conditions. This background brief authored by Kaiser Family Foundation researchers examines how three European countries – France, Germany, and Switzerland – have dealt with cost sharing in their health systems. While cost…

  • Toplines — The Public’s Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress

    Poll Finding

    Toplines -- The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress This document contains the detailed toplines from The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress poll. The poll involved a nationally representative random sample of 1,628 adults ages 18 and older who were interviewed by telephone between December 4 and 14, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For…

  • Pulling It Together: The “R” Word Is Back

    Perspective

    Longer ago than I care to admit, I got my start in health policy at M.I.T. when I wrote a book about health care regulation. The book was about a long forgotten attempt to rationalize the health care system through an elaborate health planning program set up in the seventies under the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act. It established a system of federal, state and regional planning bodies to control health care costs by limiting the supply of…

  • Primers on Key Health Care Topics and Programs

    Issue Brief

    The Kaiser Family Foundation maintains a number of primers providing overviews of key health care programs and issues. Written by Foundation staff, each primer provides key data and information that helps illustrate the topic and its relevance for the nation's health care system. Medicaid: A Primer Medicare: A Primer The Uninsured: A Primer Health Care Costs: A Primer How Private Health Coverage Works: A Primer Mental Health Financing in the United States: A Primer The…

  • Pulling It Together: Keeping the Health Reform Coalition Together

    Perspective

    We could be headed for a new schism in the debate about health reform. Not the familiar gulf between advocates of the market and government, or the predictable one between deficit hawks and spenders, but a new one that crosses traditional partisan and ideological lines between advocates of long-term reform of the health care delivery system, and immediate help for the uninsured and insured struggling with health care costs.  This new rift is most likely to develop if tight money and a crowded agenda…

  • Health Coverage in an Economic Downturn: Impact of Tight Budgets on Families and States

    Fact Sheet

    The economic downturn has strained family finances and prompted some Americans to cut back on medications and forgo preventive care and visits to the doctor. At the same time, the downturn has triggered declines in tax revenue that inhibit states’ ability to meet rising Medicaid program costs as enrollment spikes during economic hard times. Many states are expected to struggle to close budget gaps despite moves by Congress and the Obama Administration to temporarily boost…

  • President Obama’s Campaign Position on Health Reform and Other Health Care Issues

    Issue Brief

    During the 2008 Presidential campaign now President Barack Obama announced a comprehensive health care reform proposal and laid out his positions on a number of other key health care issues. The two documents below summarize these campaign policies and positions. They were prepared by the Kaiser Family Foundation with the assistance of Health Policy Alternatives, Inc., and are based on information compiled from Obama's campaign Web site, speeches, campaign debates and news reports. They are…

  • Health Care Costs and Election 2008

    Issue Brief

     Download PDF KEY FACTS ON HEALTH CARE COSTS Health spending in the United States is an estimated $2.4 trillion in 2008, an average of $7,868 per person The share of the economy (GDP) devoted to national health spending has increased from 7.2% in 1970 to an estimated 16.6% in 2008 Eighteen percent of the nonelderly were in families that spent over 10% of their disposable on out-of-pocket health care premiums and cost sharing in 2004.…

  • Pulling It Together: What Do We Want Health Insurance To Be?

    Perspective

    Trends in the health insurance marketplace show substantial growth in high deductible health plans, especially among smaller firms, where 35% of workers are now covered by plans with a deductible of $1,000 or more. That's according to our recently released employer health benefits survey, which we have been conducting now for ten years. The majority of these plans are simply high deductible health plans; only a minority are so-called "consumer driven" plans with savings accounts.…