Medicare

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

What to Know About Medicare Coverage of Telehealth

Congress has repeatedly extended pandemic-era flexibilities around Medicare coverage of telehealth, but most such flexibilities remain temporary. This brief answers key questions about the current scope of Medicare telehealth coverage, including both temporary and permanent changes adopted through legislation and regulation, and future policy considerations.

Changes to the Medicare Advantage Program Enhance Some Consumer Protections But Roll Back Others

CMS recently finalized policies as part of the 2027 Medicare Advantage final rule that both enhance consumer protections and roll back changes to the Medicare Advantage program that were intended to protect consumers. These changes have gotten less attention than payment issues and changes to the star ratings system, which also affect plan payments, but could have implications for Medicare beneficiaries.

Examining the Potential Impact of Medicare’s New WISeR Model

A federal initiative to establish new prior authorization requirements in traditional Medicare, called the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) model, is likely to have only modest impact in its first year.

State Profiles for Dual-Eligible Individuals

This data collection draws on Medicare and Medicaid administrative data to present national and state-level information on people who are covered by both Medicare and Medicaid, referred to as dual-eligible individuals (also known as dually-enrolled beneficiaries).

Data Visualization

The Facts About Medicare Spending

This interactive provides the facts on Medicare spending. Medicare, which serves 67 million people and accounts for 12 percent of the federal budget and 21 percent of national health spending, is often the focus of discussions about health expenditures, health care affordability and the sustainability of federal health programs. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eExplore data on enrollment growth, Medicare spending trends overall and per person, growth in Medicare spending relative to private insurance, spending on benefits and Medicare Advantage, Part A trust fund solvency challenges, and growth in out-of-pocket spending by beneficiaries.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eu003ca href=u0022https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/faqs-on-medicare-financing-and-trust-fund-solvency/u0022 data-type=u0022linku0022 data-id=u0022https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/faqs-on-medicare-financing-and-trust-fund-solvency/u0022u003eRelated:u003ca href=u0022https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/faqs-on-medicare-financing-and-trust-fund-solvency/u0022u003e FAQs on Medicare Financing and Trust Fund Solvencyu003c/au003eu003c/au003e

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  • Snapshots from the Kitchen Table: Family Budgets and Health Care

    Video

    This Kaiser Family Foundation documentary, “Snapshots from the Kitchen Table: Family Budgets and Health Care,” profiles several American families who are struggling to make ends meet. It depicts the narrow financial ledge on which millions of low- and middle- income working households stand even in normal economic times, and illustrates the central role that health care costs and coverage play in a household’s economic stability. Some of the families profiled have health insurance, others do…

  • Rethinking Medicaid’s Financing Role for Medicare Enrollees

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief examines coverage of the nearly 9 million "dual eligible" beneficiaries, the low-income elderly and persons with disabilities who are enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. It explores the national and state impacts of shifting the financing of selected services for dual eligibles from Medicaid to Medicare, including having the federal government pick up the full cost of Medicare premiums, cost-sharing and gaps in Medicare-covered services and long-term care services for this population.…

  • Reports Analyze Cost and Coverage of People Eligible for Both Medicaid and Medicare and Options for Reforming Financing of Their Care

    Issue Brief

    These issue briefs examine coverage of the nearly 9 million "dual eligibles," the low-income elderly and persons with disabilities who are enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. The reports explore the national and state impacts of shifting the financing of selected services for dual eligibles from Medicaid to Medicare, and provide state-level Medicaid spending and enrollment data related to this population. The policy options studied could collectively provide tens of billions of dollars in annual…

  • Pulling it Together from Drew Altman: Multiple Agendas for Controlling Health Care Costs

    Perspective

    In what would be a domestic policy trifecta, we may be headed for interconnected big debates about economic recovery, entitlement programs and health reform. A core issue in the entitlement and health reform debates is the problem of rising health care costs. President Obama, now apparently fully briefed on the economic, budget and health reform realities he faces, is talking conspicuously about hard choices that may lie ahead. In a short period of time the…

  • Revisiting ‘Skin in the Game’ Among Medicare Beneficiaries: An Updated Analysis of the Increasing Financial Burden of Health Care Spending From 1997 to 2005

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief presents an analysis of the financial burden of out-of-pocket health care spending for Medicare beneficiaries between 1997 and 2005. The analysis shows median out-of-pocket spending as a share of Medicare beneficiaries' income increased between 1997 and 2005, from 11.9 percent to 16.1 percent. For some beneficiaries, the spending burden was even greater, with 25 percent of people on Medicare spending nearly one-third or more of their income on health care.

  • Medicare 101 Tutorial

    Interactive

    This tutorial was produced for kaiserEDU.org, a Kaiser Family Foundation website that ceased production in September 2013. The kaiserEDU.org tutorials are no longer being updated but have been made available on kff.org due to demand by professors who are using the tutorials in class assignments. You may search for other tutorials to view on kff.org. To download this or other tutorials, visit the tutorials archive page.  Slides are available for download using the “Download Slides” link within the…

  • Toplines — The Public’s Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress

    Poll Finding

    Toplines -- The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress This document contains the detailed toplines from The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress poll. The poll involved a nationally representative random sample of 1,628 adults ages 18 and older who were interviewed by telephone between December 4 and 14, 2008. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For…

  • Chartpack — The Public’s Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress

    Poll Finding

    Chartpack -- The Public's Health Care Agenda for the New President and Congress This chartpack provides the key findings from the survey of the public's attitudes regarding the health care agenda for President Obama and the new Congress in 2009. It assesses the relative priority placed on health care by the American public as part of addressing the economic recession and as a large scale reform issue. The public's priorities for health care reform and…

  • Primers on Key Health Care Topics and Programs

    Issue Brief

    The Kaiser Family Foundation maintains a number of primers providing overviews of key health care programs and issues. Written by Foundation staff, each primer provides key data and information that helps illustrate the topic and its relevance for the nation's health care system. Medicaid: A Primer Medicare: A Primer The Uninsured: A Primer Health Care Costs: A Primer How Private Health Coverage Works: A Primer Mental Health Financing in the United States: A Primer The…

  • The Emerging Role of Group Medicare Private Fee-for-Service Plans

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief examines the recent boom in Medicare Advantage enrollment attributable to employers contracting with Private Fee-for-Service (PFFS) plans to cover their Medicare-eligible retirees. Between 2006 and 2008, the number of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage group plans nearly doubled from 900,000 to nearly 1.7 million as of June 2008; most of this growth is attributable to contracts between employers and PFFS plans. The issue brief, prepared for the Foundation by Avalere Health,…