KFF’s Kaiser Health News (KHN) and NPR today launched a yearlong investigative project that explores the scale, impact, and causes of the health care debt crisis in the United States. Drawing upon a special KFF poll conducted for the project, original …
The KFF Health Care Debt Survey finds that four in ten adults have some form of health care debt, with most citing one-time or short-term medical expenses as the contributor. Many of those with health care debt report making personal sacrifices and end…
In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt highlights four changes implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic that helped to make health care more accessible and affordable and the prospects for those changes to telehealth, COVID-19 coverage,…
Americans Likely Owe Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Total Medical Debt A new KFF analysis of government data estimates that nearly 1 in 10 adults (9%) – or roughly 23 million people – owe medical debt. This includes 11 million who owe m…
This analysis uses government data to examine the burden of medical debt, including variations based on age, race and ethnicity, and health status . It estimates 9% of adults – or roughly 23 million people -owe medical debt, including includes 11 milli…
This analysis assesses whether people can afford to pay cost-sharing amounts common with private insurance plans. It finds that large shares of non-elderly households do not have enough liquid assets to meet typical plan cost-sharing amounts.
In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt examines how the No Surprises Act that prohibits unexpected out-of-network charges for patients could lead to lower payment rates and revenues for some doctors and other care providers.
In this commentary for Barron’s, Cynthia Cox and Lindsey Dawson examine the cost and availability of at-home COVID-19 tests and how the new Biden administration policy requiring private insurances to cover their costs may work.
In a new Policy Watch, KFF experts explain why Medicare’s preliminary decision to cover a new Alzheimer’s drug only for a limited group of beneficiaries is likely to intensify pressure on officials to reconsider the increase in the Medicare Part B prem…
This brief summarizes KFF’s most recent polling on the public’s experiences and challenges with health care costs, and it highlights the consequences of high health care costs on the uninsured and those with lower incomes.
