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Key Takeaways from CMS’s Rural Health Funding Announcement

This brief describes key takeaways from CMS's Notice of Funding Opportunity for the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program. It includes information about how CMS intends to review state applications and distribute funds and questions about the impact on rural hospitals, the distribution of funds across rural hospitals and states, and issues related to oversight and transparency.

10 Things to Know About Rural Hospitals

Key Facts About Hospitals: A Chart Collection

What are the Implications of the 2025 Budget Reconciliation Bill for Hospitals?

1 or 2 Health Systems Controlled the Entire Market for Inpatient Care in Nearly Half of Metro Areas

health system tracker
KEY RESOURCES

  • Health Policy 101: Costs and Affordability

    This Health Policy 101 chapter explores trends in health care costs in the U.S. and the factors that contribute to this spending. It also examines how health care spending varies and the impact on affordability and people's overall financial vulnerability.  


  • Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs

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

  • National Health Spending Explorer

    This interactive Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker tool allows users to examine five decades worth of data on health expenditures by federal and local governments, private insurers, and individuals.

  • Polling on Prescription Drugs and Their Prices

    This chart collection draws on recent KFF poll findings to provide an in-depth look at the public’s attitudes toward prescription drugs and their prices. Results include Americans’ opinions on drug affordability, pharmaceutical companies, and various potential measures that could lower prices.

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  • How Prepared is the U.S. to Respond to COVID-19 Relative to Other Countries?

    Issue Brief

    Compared to most similarly large and wealthy countries, the U.S. has fewer practicing physicians per capita but has a similar number of licensed nurses per capita. Looking specifically at the hospital setting, the U.S. has more hospital-based employees per capita than most other comparable countries, but nearly half of these hospital workers are non-clinical staff.

  • Premiums and Worker Contributions Among Workers Covered by Employer-Sponsored Coverage, 1999-2020

    Interactive

    This graphing tool allows users to explore trends in workplace-sponsored health insurance premiums and worker contributions over time for different categories of employers based on results from the annual Employer Health Benefits Survey. Breakouts are available by firm size, region and industry, as well as for firms with relatively few or many part-time workers, higher- or lower-wage workers, and older or younger workers.

  • Affordability in the ACA Marketplace Under a Proposal Like Joe Biden’s Health Plan

    Issue Brief

    This KFF analysis finds that expanding Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies like Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has proposed would lower the cost of Marketplace coverage for nearly all potential enrollees, including the uninsured and others currently priced out of the Marketplace. Biden's plan would, however, increase federal spending, which we do not attempt to estimate here.

  • What Drives Health Spending in the U.S. Compared to Other Countries

    Issue Brief

    An updated issue brief looks at the drivers of health spending in the U.S. and key differences between the U.S. and other large, wealthy nations. The analysis finds that people in the U.S. spent $5,683 more per person on health care compared to those in similarly large and wealthy countries.

  • Drugs Aren’t the Reason the U.S. Spends So Much on Health Care

    From Drew Altman

    Drew Altman’s column in Axios: the U.S. now spends twice per capita what other wealthy countries do on health care. But while drug costs get all the time in public debate, it's hospital and outpatient spending that mostly explains the difference. And that will be impossible to take on without real pain and political risk, he says.

  • Visualizing Health Policy: US Statistics on Surprise Medical Billing

    News Release

    This Visualizing Health Policy infographic looks at the experience of unexpected or “surprise” medical bills in the United States. Out-of-network charges typically expose individuals to higher cost-sharing when they use services, and may lead to balance billing – in which providers bill patients directly, and often unexpectedly, at a higher rate.

  • Tracking the Role of Health Care in the 2020 Election: What Do The Polls Tell Us

    Perspective

    In this February 2020 post for The JAMA Health Forum, Mollyann Brodie and Ashley Kirzinger examine the role health care has played in the primary election to date, what the polling data says about the issue, including Medicare-for-all and a public option, and what to expect from the issue during the rest of the 2020 election campaign.