Health Costs

A new interactive tool on the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker allows users to analyze the most up-to-date data on U.S. health spending, then build, display and share the charts they create. Developed by analysts at the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Health Spending Explorer helps users examine five decades worth of numbers documenting…

On Wednesday, April 1, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alliance for Health Reform presented a briefing to explore the trends in health care costs in both the public and private sectors.

In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses why the health policy agenda may shift to focus more on affordability of coverage, consumer protection and consumer information in coming years.

On the Affordable Care Act’s fifth anniversary, Drew Altman’s column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank discusses two views of public opinion on the law.

Most Expect Negative Consequences if Supreme Court Prohibits Subsidies in States Without Their Own Insurance Exchanges; Two Thirds of the Public and Those in Affected States Want Congress or Their State to Close Any Gaps As April 15 Tax Deadline Nears, Nearly Half Unaware Insurance Reporting Requirement Starts This Year…

As the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marks its fifth anniversary, this month’s poll finds the gap between favorable and unfavorable opinions of the law has narrowed to the closest margin in over two years. Although the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the King v. Burwell case in early March, the majority of the public continues to say they have heard only a little or nothing at all about the case. The survey also includes a look at Americans’ experiences reporting their insurance status on their taxes for the first time, and finds that nearly half are unaware that the requirement to report health insurance status on their taxes takes effect this year.

In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explores the trend of higher deductibles in health plans and discusses a new analysis showing that many people with insurance don’t have sufficient financial resources to pay a mid- or high-range deductible. All previous columns by Drew…

In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explores the trend of higher deductibles in health plans and discusses a new analysis showing that many people with private insurance don’t have sufficient financial resources to pay a mid- or high-range deductible.

Higher cost sharing in private insurance has been credited with helping to slow the growth of health care costs in recent years. For families with low incomes or moderate incomes, however, high deductibles, out-of-pocket limits and other cost sharing can be a potential barrier to care and may lead these families to significant financial difficulties. This issue brief uses information from the Federal Reserve Board’s 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances to look at how household resources match up against potential cost-sharing requirements for plans offered by employers or available in the individual market, including in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

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.