Chronic Diseases

The April 2018 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds six in ten say they or someone in their immediate family have a chronic health condition that requires ongoing medical treatment, and a third of those dealing with a chronic condition requiring ongoing medical care say they or their household have had problems paying medical bills in the past 12 months. This poll finding also looks at how the public views policies aimed at preventing chronic disease in America.

One million Medicare beneficiaries had out-of-pocket drug spending above the Part D catastrophic threshold in 2015, and the number with such high spending has risen sharply in recent years, according to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. While the Part D drug benefit has helped make drugs more…

Chronic illness is prevalent in the adult Medicaid population. Preventive care, including immunizations and regular screenings that permit early detection and treatment of chronic conditions, improves the prospects for better health outcomes. This Data Note focuses on Medicaid’s role in providing access to preventive care for low-income adults.

This brief outlines Medicaid’s role for Medicare beneficiaries. It describes the role that Medicaid plays for 10 million Medicare beneficiaries to help inform upcoming debates about proposals to restructure Medicaid financing in ways that could reduce federal funding.

Among beneficiaries who died in 2014, Medicare spent significantly more per person on medical services for seniors in their late sixties and early seventies than on older beneficiaries, according to a new data note from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The analysis comes at a time when physicians can now be…

This data note provides a snapshot of Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2014 and their Medicare spending at the end of life. It examines Medicare per capita spending trends over time since 2000 and in 2014, both overall and by type of service, for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare who died in a given year compared to those who survived the year.

This chartpack draws on data and analysis from a variety of sources to profile the Medicare population through the lens of race and ethnicity, describing life expectancy, demographic characteristics, income and savings, health status and chronic conditions, supplemental coverage, selected measures of access to care, and service utilization.

This issue brief describes Medicaid’s role for people with dementia, including how they qualify, what services Medicaid provides, and what their utilization and spending is, and builds on our work examining Medicaid’s role for vulnerable populations and Medicaid’s role in the provision of long-term services and supports.

In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explains how a recent Bureau of Economic Analysis report makes the nation’s health care spending more tangible by breaking it down by disease. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.

In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explains how a recent Bureau of Economic Analysis report makes the nation’s health care spending more tangible by breaking it down by disease.