The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
KFF’s policy research provides facts and analysis on a wide range of policy issues and public programs.
KFF designs, conducts and analyzes original public opinion and survey research on Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the health care system to help amplify the public’s voice in major national debates.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the organization’s core operating programs.
In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman unravels the differences between Trump and Biden on Medicare, abortion, drug costs and other health-related issues that KFF's new side-by-side candidate analysis examines. From the bird’s eye view, these differences amount to a fork in the road in direction on the role of the federal government in health and federal health spending.
In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman reviews an evaluation of a “guaranteed income” (GI) randomized trial in Cambridge, MA and writes about the potential of GI strategies to reduce poverty and its effects. When it comes to influencing the social determinants of health, he argues, “income strategies” deployed outside of health care, such as GI, deserve as much attention from health care people as “service strategies.”
As of May 21, 2024, half of all U.S. states have enacted a law that prohibits or limits youth access to gender affirming care. This Data Note examines the uptick in this lawmaking, which was slow at first but then quickened, increasing 7-fold in an eight-month period in 2023.
Health Policy 101 is a comprehensive guide covering fundamental aspects of U.S. health policy and programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, employer-sponsored insurance, the uninsured population, health care costs and affordability, women's health issues, and health care politics. It includes overviews of private health insurance regulation, racial and ethnic disparities, public health, international comparison of health systems, U.S. global health policy, and the federal role in health policy. The chapters can be downloaded in a PDF format for faculty and student use, and the information will be updated annually or as data and circumstances change.
On May 8, 2024, KFF submitted this letter in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services request for information about research data requests and access policy changes.
In his new column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman discusses the pros and cons of labeling socio-economic problems as health issues.
In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman looks back at the remarkable progress made in expanding coverage for the uninsured and what it could mean politically for today’s remaining uninsured—a population that has had little clout historically and will command even less attention now.
KFF Health News and Cox Media Group Television Stations announced today that they received the 2024 Goldsmith Awards’ inaugural Government Reporting Prize for their joint reporting in the series “Overpayment Outrage,” which exposed how the Social Security Administration routinely reduced or suspended monthly checks to take back funds to pay off large debts that were…
Primary care has historically served as the backbone of our nation’s health care system, with patients often maintaining a relationship with a primary-care provider to guide their care over a period of years. Yet, the U.S. emphasizes primary care less than other high-income countries. On Wednesday, April 3 a panel of primary-care experts joined Larry Levitt, KFF’s executive vice president for health policy, for a 45-minute discussion on the current state of primary care in the country, including the extent of the shortage, how it varies geographically and for different populations, the impact on people’s health, and what can be done to address it.
In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman examines how the politics around the Medicaid program have changed as it has grown much larger and more popular, making it even tougher to block grant the program to cut federal Medicaid spending and hand it off to the states.
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