Health Costs

The MIDTERMS

Democrats Hold a Nearly 2-to-1 Advantage Over Republicans on Handling the Cost of Health Care

Poll: Cost of Health Care and Gas Top Voters’ Midterm Concerns; Democrats Hold Significant Advantage on Health Care Costs and Cost of Living 

With the 2026 midterms about a month away, health care costs remain tied with gas as voters’ top midterm concerns and the Democrats hold a clear edge over the Republicans Party on who voters trust to handle many top electoral issues, including the cost of health care and the cost of living. Two-thirds of U.S. adults now favor Medicare-for-all, a new high in KFF Polling, but support shifts when competing claims from critics and proponents are heard.

New and noteworthy

Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs

This data note reviews our recent polling data that finds that many Americans struggle to afford many aspects of health care, including disproportionate shares of uninsured adults, Black and Hispanic adults and those with lower incomes.

Health System Tracker

U.S. Health Spending Is Expected to Reach $9 Trillion by 2034

How Much is Health Spending Expected to Grow?

This chart collection explores how much health spending is expected to grow in the coming years, with a look at growth in prescription drug spending, out-of-pocket spending, and related trends.

Is This A Healthcare Economy?

Health care employment has grown faster than other sectors of the economy, with jobs in physician offices, hospitals, outpatient care centers, home health, and other settings increasing over the past year even as the rest of the job market plateaued. 

How TrumpRx Brand-Name Drug Prices Compare

TrumpRx prices for brand-name drugs are about as likely to be higher as lower compared to average prices in other wealthy countries, according to an analysis that compares 32 brand-name drugs.

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  • Poll: Two-thirds of Voters Say a Candidate’s Position on Pre-existing Conditions is Important to their Vote, More than Say the Same about Drug Costs, ACA Repeal or Medicare-for-All

    News Release

    About two-thirds (65%) of voters say a candidate’s support for continued protections for people with pre-existing health conditions is either the “single most important factor” or “very important” to their vote in the upcoming midterms elections, finds the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll. That’s a larger share than says the same about other health care issues, including bringing down prescription drug costs (58%), repealing the Affordable Care Act (53%), stabilizing the ACA marketplaces (52%), or…

  • Don’t Overhype the New Health Care Venture

    From Drew Altman

    In an Axios column, Drew Altman dissects the many dimensions of the health cost problem and discusses why the Bezos-Buffett-Dimon initiative is unlikely to have much impact on the larger health cost problems the public and policymakers care about most.

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll – March 2018: Views on Prescription Drug Pricing and Medicare-for-all Proposals

    Feature

    More than a year into President Trump’s presidency, the March Kaiser Health Tracking Poll gauges the public’s top priorities for the president and Congress to do in the coming months. This month’s poll also measures perceptions on the cost of prescription drugs, attitudes towards policymakers’ actions to address drug prices, and views of pharmaceutical companies. In addition, with the 2018 midterm elections less than 8 months away, the KFF poll asks how important a national…

  • The Politics of ACA Rate Hikes Will Be 2016 in Reverse

    From Drew Altman

    Democrats are expected to turn the tables and attack Republicans for rising premiums and sabotaging the Affordable Care Act. In his Axios column, Drew Altman discusses a balancing act they face which has not received attention: score political points, but run the risk of a new debate scaring the broader public and undermining the ACA by focusing on its continuing problems.

  • Why are Healthcare Prices So High, and What can be Done about Them?

    Event Date:
    Event

    An archived webcast of this forum is now available at www.healthsystemtracker.org . Nearly a fifth of the United States’ economy goes to healthcare spending – a far larger share than in any other large, wealthy country in the world. Research suggests that price, rather than the volume of services, is the main driver of this disparity, and price is also a primary factor in pushing up the nation’s health spending over time. On May 9, 2018,…

  • As Americans age, Medicare will pay for a growing share of the nation’s prescription drugs

    Feature

    COW – powerpoint on Medicare drug spending share increasing Download Source Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of National Health Expenditure (NHE) Historical (1960-2016) and Projected (2017-2026) data from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, National Health Statistics Group (Accessed on May 2, 2018) for the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker.