Affordability

KFF’s Tricia Neuman’s testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means on June 12, 2019 describes a range of proposals to broaden health insurance coverage and make health care more affordable, the similarities and differences among them, and the policy choices and trade-offs that could have significant implications for coverage and costs.

This Visualizing Health Policy infographic, produced in partnership with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), looks at barriers to care experienced by women in the United States.

This summary examines key findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation and California Health Care Foundation California Health Policy Survey among low-income Californians. This brief examines the attitudes and experiences of low-income Californians with health care costs, access, and mental health services.

In this Axios column, Drew Altman reports on new KFF focus groups with voters. They show voters are focused on the problems they have paying for care and navigating the health system, but have yet to tune in on the health proposals being made by candidates and elected officials, and don’t see them as relevant to their problems. 

As deductibles have increased over the past five years, those with higher deductibles are more likely to say that health insurance has gotten worse over the past five years.

In this May 2019 post for The JAMA forum, Larry Levitt examines how the early discussion and positioning among the presidential candidates offers a glimpse into how a debate about Medicare-for-all might play out.

Deductible Relief Day is May 19. That’s the date by which average spending for people with employer-sponsored health insurance is sufficient to satisfy the average deductible, the amount they must pay out-of-pocket for most health care services before their insurance plan kicks in to help pay the bills, KFF analysts…

This analysis examines how health insurance deductibles are affecting consumers with employer-sponsored insurance. Deductibles have risen in recent years and become an increasingly prominent feature of job-based health plans. “Deductible Relief Day” refers to the date by which average spending for people with employer-sponsored health insurance is sufficient to satisfy the average deductible.

In this Axios column, Drew Altman shows that employer coverage for lower wage workers is much worse than ACA marketplace coverage for similar populations. It’s a bigger problem we need to talk about more, he says.

A new KFF/Los Angeles Times survey of Americans with employer health benefits finds that although most are largely satisfied with their employer plan, many report financial challenges related to their health care costs, particularly among those facing high deductibles or suffering from chronic health conditions. The survey captures the experiences…