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KFF Health Tracking Poll: MAHA and the Midterms

Chemical food additive and pesticide concerns associated with the Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement are shared broadly across the public. But when it comes to voters, health care costs are a higher priority and bigger motivator, even among MAHA supporters, a new KFF Health Tracking Poll finds. When asked to identify their most important health priority for government to address, far more MAHA-supporting voters identify lowering the cost of health care (42%) than other issues more closely associated with the movement.

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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  • Working Families at Risk: Coverage, Access, Cost and Worries

    Other Post

    Many Working Families Struggle To Get Needed Care And Pay Medical Bills Three-Quarters of the Currently or Recently Uninsured Are in Working Families Nearly Half of Uninsured Adults in Working Families Have Access or Bill Problems Embargoed for release until: 10:00 a.m., EST, Monday, December 8, 1997 For further Information contact: Chris Ferris (202)347-5270 or Mary Mahon (212)606-3853 Washington, D.C.-- Three in four American adults who do not have health insurance or who have experienced…

  • The Role of PBMs in Managing Drug Costs: Implications for a Medicare Drug Benefit

    Other Post

    Extending a drug benefit to Medicare beneficiaries has been a highly publicized issue in recent months. To address the question of how to finance and administer such a benefit while controlling its cost, some have proposed using pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)--companies that administer pharmaceutical benefits for health plans, HMOs, and employers while managing drug utilization and obtaining discounts from both retail pharmacies and manufacturers. Most recently, the Clinton Administration introduced a proposal for a Medicare…

  • The Characteristics and Roles of Medicaid-Dominated Managed Care Plans

    Report

    This policy brief (Publication #2180) provides a national profile of Medicaid-dominated managed care plans - those in which Medicaid enrollees make up at least 75 percent of total enrollment. While recent policy and market forces have encouraged the growth of these plans, basic information about them has been lacking, partly because many are not licensed as HMOs by states. As of June 1997, 118 of these Medicaid-dominated plans served 3.4 million Medicaid enrollees across the…

  • Prescription Drug Trends: A Chartbook

    Report

    Prescription Drug Trends - A Chartbook, an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Sonderegger Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about trends in prescription drug coverage, spending, prices, use, and industry structure. Although overall coverage for prescription drugs has increased over the last decade, about a quarter of the nonelderly and a third of Medicare beneficiaries have no drug coverage. Spending for prescriptions is one of the fastest growing components of health…

  • Medicare Beneficiaries and HMOs: A Case Study of the Tampa-St. Petersburg Market

    Report

    This case study of the evolution of Medicare managed care in Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, is one of four in a series being prepared by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., for the Kaiser Family Foundation to examine the growth and impact of Medicare managed care. The Medicare risk (HMO) program has developed at different rates and with different degrees of success across the country. The four unique market areas selected for the project include two with high…

  • Recent Attitudes Towards Patients Rights and Managed Care

    Report

    Newly released survey findings show continued public support for patient protections, including the right to sue health plans, but that support erodes if people believe that the cost of health insurance may increase or that companies might stop offering health coverage to their workers. The survey found that the percentage of people reporting problems with their health plans and the urgency the public attaches to Congressional action has not changed in recent years. Public Opinion…

  • The Working Uninsured in California and the US

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief, prepared by Linda Blumberg and Len Nichols of the Urban Institute, examines the factors contributing to the disproportionately high rates of uninsurance among California's workers compared to the U.S. The report looks at differences in coverage by race and ethnicity, and by citizenship status, and also examines offer and take-up rates for employer health insurance among California's workers. Issue Brief

  • Comparisons of the Liability Provisions of the House and Senate Patients’ Rights Bills

    Report

    A hotly debated issue in Congress has been the issue of when health maintenance organizations, health insurers, and those who administer health benefit plans should be financially liable to their plan participants for a denial of a claim or for damages for any injuries that result from such denials (known as health plan liability ). This new report by Gary Claxton of the Georgetown Institute for Health Care Research and Policy describes the health plan…

  • How Well Does the Employment-Based Health Insurance System Work for Low-Income Families?

    Other Post

    Part 2 Even when insurance is offered to low-wage workers, its costs to these workers may be substantial, and, for some, a barrier to coverage. In 1996, workers had to contribute an average of $1,615 per year for family coverage, or about 30% of the total premium.5 Thus, a worker who earned $10 an hour in 1996, with annual wages of about $20,000, would have had to spend 8% of earnings to buy family coverage.*…