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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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  • Ongoing Challenges with Hospital Price Transparency

    Issue Brief

    This analysis examines transparency data currently shared by hospitals to comply with federal law and finds that they are messy, inconsistent and confusing, making it challenging if not impossible for patients or researchers to use them to compare prices. Many of these shortcomings stem from a lack of specificity in the requirements for what hospitals must report.

  • Analysis: Inconsistencies Within Hospital Price Transparency Data Make Cost Comparisons Difficult

    News Release

    Since 2021, federal law has required hospitals to publicly post information about their standard prices and negotiated discount rates for common health services to encourage consumers to compare prices and to promote competition. To date, however, the transparency data currently shared by hospitals to comply with the law are messy, inconsistent and confusing, making it challenging, if not impossible, for patients or researchers to use them to compare prices across hospitals or payers, a new…

  • Rural Hospitals Have Fared Worse Financially in States that Haven’t Expanded Medicaid Coverage

    News Release

    Rural hospitals fared worse financially in states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act than in states that expanded Medicaid, a new KFF analysis finds. Nearly one third of all rural hospitals nationally are in the 11 states that have not approved the expansion of their Medicaid programs to cover low-income childless adults, and concerns about their ongoing viability has been an issue in legislative debates about whether to do…

  • KFF’s Kaiser Health News and CBS News Team Up to Investigate a Dental Device That Allegedly Has Left a Trail of Mangled Mouths and Devastated Patients

    News Release

    In a months-long project, KFF’s Kaiser Health News correspondent Brett Kelman joined forces with CBS News National Consumer Investigative Correspondent Anna Werner to investigate an unregulated dental device that is at the heart of numerous accounts of pain and disfigurement. At least 10,000 dental patients have been fitted with the fixed Anterior Growth Guidance Appliance (“AGGA”), which costs about $7,000. The device resembles a retainer, is typically worn for several months, and uses springs to…

  • Nonprofit Hospitals’ Tax-Exempt Status Worth About $28 Billion, New KFF Analysis Finds

    News Release

    Editor's Note: The press release was updated on March 27, 2023, to reflect corrections in the underlying analysis, resulting in a modest increase in the total estimated value of tax exemption, from $27.6 to $28.1 billion. The tax-exempt status of the nation’s nonprofit hospitals collectively was worth about $28 billion in 2020, a new KFF analysis of hospital financial data estimates. The total reflects the estimated federal, state and local taxes that nonprofit hospitals do…

  • Summary of Costs and Impact of the Prescription Drug Provisions in the Build Back Better Act

    News Release

    As the House-passed Build Back Better Act moves to the Senate, a new explainer from KFF summarizes the key prescription drug provisions within the broader budget reconciliation bill. These provisions would lower prescription drug costs paid by people with Medicare and private insurance and curb drug spending by the federal government and private payers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates federal budget savings from the drug pricing provisions would be $297 billion over 10 years. Although…

  • Unpacking the Prescription Drug Provisions of the Build Back Better Act

    Event Date:
    Event

    As the Build Back Better Act shifts from the House to the Senate, there’s considerable interest in provisions that would lower the cost of prescription drugs. The House-passed bill would allow the federal government to negotiate prices for some high-cost drugs in Medicare, and set a hard cap on out-of-pocket drug spending for Medicare Part D enrollees.  For people with Medicare and private insurance, the legislation would limit annual increases in drug prices and cap…