Category: health costs

Large Majorities Across Parties Favor Allowing the Federal Government to Negotiate Drug Prices, Even After Hearing Common Arguments About It

Most of the Public Lacks Confidence that President Biden, Congressional Democrats or Republicans Will Do the Right Thing on Drug Prices Allowing the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries and…

How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries?

This slideshow compares life expectancy in the U.S. and other nations. The data shows that life expectancy at birth is lower in the U.S. than other industrialized countries for both women and men. The life-expectancy gap between the U.S. and other co…

How Marketplace Costs and Premiums Will Change if American Rescue Plan Subsidies Expire

In a new Policy Watch, KFF analysts explore the potential impact of the expiration of the American Rescue Plan Act’s enhanced financial help and new eligibility for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance Marketplace federal subsidies. While the COV…

How Marketplace Costs and Premiums will Change if Rescue Plan Subsidies Expire

In this Policy Watch we explore the potential impact of the expiration of the American Rescue Plan Act’s enhanced financial help and new eligibility for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance Marketplace federal subsidies. While the COVID-19 relief…

Many Medicare Beneficiaries Face High Out-of-Pocket Costs for Dental and Hearing Care, Whether in Traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage

Many Medicare beneficiaries face high annual out-of-pocket costs for dental and hearing care — services that generally aren’t covered in traditional Medicare, but typically are covered by Medicare Advantage plans though the scope and value of the…

Dental, Hearing, and Vision Costs and Coverage Among Medicare Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage

This analysis builds on our prior work – Medicare and Dental Coverage: A Closer Look – by analyzing hearing and vision use, out-of-pocket spending and cost-related barriers to care among Medicare beneficiaries as well as hearing and vision benefits in …

The Changing Costs of Covid Care

In this commentary for Barron’s, Cynthia Cox explores the impact to the American public as the U.S. health insurance system adjusts to the COVID-19 pandemic. She uses the experience of the past year and a half to raise questions about broader issues of…

Preventable Costs of Unvaccinated COVID-19 Patients Rise Sharply in August as Hospitalizations Surge

A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations among people who have not been vaccinated in August is adding billions of dollars in preventable costs to the nation’s health-care system, an updated KFF analysis finds. In August, the new analysis estimates that th…

COVID-19 continues to be a leading cause of death in the U.S. in August 2021

With the rapid uptake in vaccinations in recent months, COVID-19 deaths have fallen sharply. COVID-19 is now the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. This updated analysis looks at the pandemic’s effect on mortality rates.

Unvaccinated COVID patients cost the U.S. health system billions of dollars

This updated analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker estimates that the preventable costs of treating unvaccinated patients in hospitals total $13.8 billion during the six-month period from June through November when the delta variant led t…