Category: Kaiser Family Foundation

Corporate Leaders Are Getting Bullish On Government Action On Health Care Costs

In this Axios column, Drew Altman explores whether the long struggle with rising health costs has caused the tide to turn in corporate leaders’ attitudes towards government involvement in controlling health spending and whether it is part of a larger s…

Lowering the Age of Medicare Eligibility Would Likely Reduce Health Spending for Employers, But Raise Costs for the Federal Government by Covering More People in Medicare

Two new KFF analyses find that lowering the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60 could significantly reduce health spending for employers, who could potentially pass savings to employees in the form of lower premiums or higher wages. Additionally,…

Health Spending for 60-64 Year Olds Would Be Lower Under Medicare Than Under Large Employer Plans

During the presidential campaign, President Biden proposed to lower the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60. This analysis uses claims data for covered medical services from both large employer plans and traditional Medicare to illustrate the pot…

How Lowering the Medicare Eligibility Age Might Affect Employer-Sponsored Insurance Costs

This analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker illustrates the potential for employer savings if the age of Medicare eligibility were lowered to 60, as proposed by President Biden during the 2020 campaign.

April 29 Web Briefing: How Large Employers View Rising Health Care Costs and the Role of Government

The COVID-19 pandemic and recent elections are changing the national conversation around expanding health care coverage and reining in rising health care costs. President Biden campaigned on a platform of expanding access to public health coverage in w…

Analysis Finds That a Relatively Small Number of Drugs Account for the Majority of Medicare Prescription Drug Spending

A new KFF analysis finds that a relatively small share of drugs, mainly those without generic or biosimilar competitors, accounted for a disproportionate share of prescription drug spending in Medicare in 2019. This finding suggests that recent proposa…

Relatively Few Drugs Account for a Large Share of Medicare Prescription Drug Spending

As policymakers focus attention on proposals to lower prescription drug costs by allowing price negotiation or international reference pricing for a limited number of drugs, this analysis measures the share of total Medicare Part D and Part B prescript…

Analysis: Hospital Price Transparency Data Lacks Standardization, Limiting Its Use to Insurers, Employers, and Consumers

In spite of a new price transparency rule that requires hospitals to publish the prices of common health services, comparing prices across hospitals remains challenging due to limited compliance with the law and a lack of standardization in the availab…

Early Results from Federal Price Transparency Rule Show Difficultly in Estimating the Cost of Care

A new issue brief examines compliance with a new federal price transparency rule and variation in payer-negotiated rates at U.S. hospitals. The analysis looks at the websites of the two largest hospitals in each state and the District of Columbia, and …

COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Excess Mortality and Potential Years of Life Lost in the U.S. and Peer Countries

A new issue brief reviews excess death rates in the U.S. and peer countries by age groups to examine how the pandemic has affected excess mortality rate among younger people. The analysis looks specifically at the excess deaths that arose in 2020 to ex…