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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.”

New and noteworthy

How Unaffordable is Health Care and What Can We Do About It?

Event Date:

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.

Health System Tracker

Among adults 18 - 64 with private insurance, mental health and substance use treatment accounted for 10% of all overnight stays at hospitals or other medical facilities in 2023.

Cost and Utilization of Inpatient Mental Health and Substance Use Treatment This analysis describes the most common diagnoses for inpatient treatment and total associated costs.

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 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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  • 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

  • Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance in California: Current Trends, Future Outlook, and Coverage Expansions — Issue Brief

    Issue Brief

    A 4-page issue brief that looks at trends in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage in California. The brief also includes public and private sector strategies for expanding employment-based coverage, and discusses how other states have implemented incremental coverage expansions using public programs and financial incentives, with emphasis on New York State. The brief lists the panel for a California Health Policy Roundtable held in Sacramento, California on May 4, 2001. Issue Brief

  • President Bush’s Budget:  An Overview of Health Programs

    Other Post

    President Bush's Budget: An Overview of Health Programs A new Foundation presentation provides an overview of President Bush s federal budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2002, focusing on its impact on health programs. The budget largely keeps pace with expected growth in Medicare and Medicaid, creates a prescription drug block grant to states for low-income seniors, proposes decreased funding for some public health programs, and would provide either limited or no growth for central programs…

  • Covering the Low-Income Uninsured: The Case For Expanding Public Programs

    Issue Brief

    An article in the January/February 2001 issue of Health Affairs by Judith Feder, Larry Levitt, Ellen O’Brien, and Diane Rowland assesses how best to expand health insurance coverage for the low-income uninsured. The article concludes that despite flaws in existing public programs, which can and should be remedied, strengthening programs like Medicaid and CHIP establishes a foundation for truly effective coverage for all low-income Americans. Available at www.healthaffairs.org.

  • Medicaid and Managed Care

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides an overview of the Medicaid program's increasing reliance on managed care to deliver services. Fact Sheet

  • Post-Election Survey: The Public and the Health Care Agenda for the New Administration and Congress

    Poll Finding

    This Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard School of Public Health survey, conducted immediately after the 2000 Presidential election, finds that health care issues ranked near the top of voters priorities for spending the surplus. Medicare ranked among the top three priorities, along with education and Social Security, and ahead of paying off the national debt and cutting taxes. Education ranked first. The survey also found that voters support patients rights legislation and some action to help the…

  • National Survey on Americans as Health Care Consumers: An Update on the Role of Quality Information

    Poll Finding

    This survey of Americans by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) shows that the recent attention to medical errors may have entered the public's consciousness since it is now among the public's leading measures of health care quality. The survey also found that the public is more likely to rely on recommendations of friends, family and health professionals they know than on existing standardized quality indicators. Few…