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KFF
Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs
This data note reviews our recent polling data that finds that many Americans struggle to afford many aspects of health care, including disproportionate shares of uninsured adults, Black and Hispanic adults and those with lower incomes.
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 3:30 PM |
KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs in the Current Moment of Economic Anxiety
As economic anxiety rises, KFF's Health Tracking Poll finds that younger adult, LGBT adults, Hispanic adults, and adults with modest incomes are among groups most likely to report difficulty earning a living and affording health care. Large shares of those who are uninsured or purchase their own insurance also report challenges earning a living and paying for care.
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 3:00 PM |
Trump Administration Actions to Curb Data Collection Related to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI)
This brief describes Trump Administration efforts to scale back or modify data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity variables in federal surveys. It specifically focuses on changes in three national surveys that are representative of these efforts: the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 2:44 PM |
Recent Trends in Commercial Health Insurance Market Concentration
Commercial health insurance markets remain highly concentrated across coverage types. However, the individual market, which consists mostly of the ACA Marketplaces, has attracted more insurers and witnessed greater insurer competition across a variety of measures since the implementation of the enhanced premium tax credits in 2021, according to a new Healthy System Tracker analysis.
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 1:59 PM |
CDC Vaccine Panel Ends Universal Hepatitis B Recommendation and Reviews Aluminum in Vaccines, Plus Public Awareness of Mifepristone Safety — The Monitor
This volume shares updates from the most recent CDC advisory panel meeting, changes to the CDC webpage on autism and vaccines, and polling on trust in news organizations. Additionally, it shares recent developments in AI and social media policy and new KFF poll findings about perceptions of mifepristone’s safety and prevalence.
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 1:00 PM |
Tracking Key Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Actions Under the Trump Administration
A new KFF tracker highlights key federal policy actions during President Trump’s second term that concern issues related to mental health and substance use. The second Trump administration has emphasized law-and-order strategies and scaled back several mental health and substance use-related services, while also continuing some treatment-focused initiatives. The tracker can be viewed in multiple ways, including chronological order of policy actions and by category (Mental Health; Opioids/Substance Use Disorder; Federal Infrastructure/ Data/Guidance; and Gun Violence).
POSTED DECEMBER 10, 2025 6:05 PM |
Medicare Advantage 2026 Spotlight: A First Look at Plan Premiums and Benefits
This brief provides an overview of premiums and benefits in Medicare Advantage plans that are available for 2026 and key trends over time.
POSTED DECEMBER 09, 2025 1:29 PM |
Medicare Advantage 2026 Spotlight: A First Look at Plan Offerings
This brief provides an overview of the Medicare Advantage plans that are available for 2026 and key trends over time. In 2026, the average Medicare beneficiary has a choice of 32 Medicare Advantage prescription drug (MA-PD) plans, two fewer than the 34 in 2025. Virtually all Medicare Advantage plans for 2026 provide multiple extra benefits like vision, hearing, and dental benefits, similar to last year.
POSTED DECEMBER 09, 2025 1:29 PM |
Global COVID-19 Tracker
This tracker provides data on global COVID-19 cases and deaths by country, region, and income-level. Additionally, the tracker reports current closure, economic, and health system policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic globally. This tracker will be updated as new data are available.
POSTED DECEMBER 08, 2025 6:26 PM |
Tracking Implementation of the 2025 Reconciliation Law: Medicaid Work Requirements Implementation Questions
A list of the implementation questions relating to the Medicaid work requirements in the 2025 Reconciliation law.
POSTED DECEMBER 08, 2025 2:29 PM |
Insurance Archives - KFF Health News
Seguros con deducibles altos ponen en aprietos a pacientes con afecciones crónicas
os planes con deducibles altos —es decir, la cantidad que los pacientes deben abonar por la mayoría de los servicios médicos antes que el seguro se haga cargo— se han vuelto cada vez más comunes.
POSTED DECEMBER 12, 2025 6:23 PM |
Sticker Shock: Obamacare Customers Confront Premium Spikes as Congress Dithers
With subsidies that give consumers extra help paying their health insurance premiums set to expire, lawmakers are again debating the Affordable Care Act. The difference this time: It’s happening in the middle of ACA open enrollment.
POSTED DECEMBER 12, 2025 10:00 AM |
What the Health? From KFF Health News: Crunch Time for ACA Tax Credits
Dec. 15 is the deadline to sign up for Affordable Care Act plans that begin Jan. 1, and Congress remains at odds over letting expanded tax credits for the plans’ premiums expire and increasing the cost of insurance for millions of Americans. Meanwhile, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to remake vaccine policy to reflect ideology rather than science. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Maya Goldman of Axios, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Georgetown professor Linda Blumberg about the GOP’s health plans.
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 8:40 PM |
Health Care Consolidation and Rising Costs Happen, but Obamacare Is Not the Key Culprit
The debate over expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits has given Republicans room to resurface old criticisms — such as blaming the ACA for mergers and consolidation within the health care industry.
POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2025 10:00 AM |
Plan-Switching, Sign-Up Impersonations: Obamacare Enrollment Fraud Persists
Investigators from the Government Accountability Office were able to register nearly 20 fake ACA enrollments in a probe of healthcare.gov. The federal government paid subsidies to insurers for some of the fake customers.
POSTED DECEMBER 10, 2025 10:00 AM |
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