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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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  • Pulling it Together: Separating the Forest from the Trees in the Health Reform Debate

    Perspective

    The good news for those who care about health care is that the issue is rising again on the national agenda. If we have a big debate about health in the presidential campaign and if it is a factor at the polls in 2008, it will help create a mandate for the new president and Congress to make health care a priority in 2009. But the real health care debate has been delayed by the…

  • Accountable Care Organizations: A New Paradigm for Health Care Delivery?

    Event Date:
    Event

    The health reform law of 2010 authorizes Medicare, beginning next year, to contract with accountable care organizations (ACOs) in a Medicare Shared Savings Program. ACOs provide financial incentives to improve the coordination and quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, while reducing costs. But providers have raised red flags, saying the arrangements are burdensome and too hard to achieve. This briefing addresses questions raised by the law and the subsequent regulation implementing ACOs, including: How will…

  • Medicare Spending and Use of Medical Services for Beneficiaries in Nursing Homes and Other Long‐Term Care Facilities: A Potential for Achieving Medicare Savings and Improving the Quality of Care

    Report

    Medicare Spending and Use of Medical Services for Beneficiaries in Nursing Homes and Other Long‐Term Care Facilities: A Potential for Achieving Medicare Savings and Improving the Quality of Care This report documents the relatively high rates of hospital stays, emergency room visits and skilled nursing facility admissions among long-term care facility residents. It finds that Medicare per capita spending for Medicare beneficiaries living in nursing homes, assisted-living centers and other long-term care facilities, $14,538 in…

  • Statement of Gary Claxton to NAIC Exchanges (B) Subgroup

    Event Date:
    Event

    Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President Gary Claxton, who directs the Foundation's Marketplace Policy Project, testified July 22, 2010, at a public hearing before the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Exchanges (B) Subgroup established by the health reform law.  Testimony (.pdf)

  • Pulling It Together: Critical Path To Health Reform

    Perspective

    In this new section of our Web site, I pull together ideas and data from across the Foundation’s work to try to paint a bigger picture that hopefully helps to illuminate critical health policy issues. This is not a blog or a personal position statement. This second installment of the new Pulling It Together series lays out the steps that could lead to the first major national health reform debate since the early nineties. Other…

  • Pulling it Together: REPOR(t)

    Perspective

    In today’s column I investigate a somewhat lighter topic than my last column on micro-simulation modeling: What was the impact of shows like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report on the health reform debate?  Who among us has not wondered about the answer to this question?  Please don’t answer that. I should start by acknowledging that I am a frequent but not religious viewer of these shows, and believe that…

  • 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…

  • Survey Brief: Economic Problems Facing Families

    Poll Finding

    This poll finds that health care costs rank among Americans’ top personal economic problems, and their struggles to deal with those costs have affected both their financial well-being and their family’s health care. Conducted by the Foundation’s public opinion researchers, the poll probes into the economic concerns facing Americans and the ways they have dealt with the cost of health care. The poll was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family…

  • 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…

  • Key Findings: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — September 2009

    Poll Finding

    This document contains the key findings from the September Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted September 11 through September 18, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (801) and cell phone (402, including 147 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin…