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.
State Health Facts is a KFF project that provides free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States. It offers data on specific types of health insurance coverage, including employer-sponsored, Medicaid, Medicare, as well as people who are uninsured by demographic characteristics, including age, race/ethnicity, work status, gender, and income. There are also data on health insurance status for a state's population overall and broken down by age, gender, and income.
On May 25, 2006, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed into law comprehensive health care reform legislation. The plan is designed to increase access to affordable health care while reducing cost through quality improvement measures. The plan requires employers to provide or help finance coverage for their workers.
Medicaid, the main health insurance program for low-income people and the single largest source of public coverage in the U.S., turns 50 this year.
Hidden away on page 218 of our annual Employer Health Benefits Survey is a table that shows what employers think of the main strategies they have to control health care costs. More specifically, the table shows what the person in the firm responsible for its health benefits thinks, which is whom we survey.
Several years ago Joanne Silberner from NPR offered some advice I liked. Joanne said that the secret to effective communication was to "have a killer anecdote and a killer number." Here is a killer number: 19.7.
There is one poll number that may be more important to watch than any other if we have a big debate about health reform: The percentage of Americans who think that they or their families would be better off if the president and the Congress enacted major health reform legislation.
We could be headed for a new schism in the debate about health reform.
This document contains the full findings and methodology from a Kaiser study featured in Health Affairs that examines the current spending on care for the uninsured and projects additional medical spending if the population had health insurance coverage. Full Report (.
This Summary presents background, findings, and data from the Economic and Social Research Institute's (ESRI) full report, Privatization of Public Hospitals. Section I provides background about public hospital conversions, including the role of public hospitals, reasons for conversion, the mechanisms of conversion and new ownership entities, and analysis of national and regional public hospital data.
New 50-State Survey Finds Some States Make Targeted Expansions to Strengthen Coverage and Achieve Efficiencies as They Prepare for Health Reform WASHINGTON -- Despite tight budgets, nearly all states maintained or made targeted expansions or improvements in their Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) eligibility and enrollment rules in 2010, preserving the programs’ ability…
Overview and Briefing Charts This chartpack reviews the President’s FY 2006 budget request to Congress and highlights overall budget assumptions and funding for major health programs. It begins with a description of the federal budget process, followed by an overview of federal surplus/deficit spending patterns dating back to 1969.
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