News Releases

The federal government spent $321 more per person for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans than for those in traditional Medicare in 2019, a gap that amounted to $7 billion in additional spending on the increasingly popular private plans that year, finds a new KFF analysis. The Medicare Advantage spending…

Project will Leverage KHN’s Reporting, Editing and Distribution Capacity to Strengthen Local Health Journalism in Communities Across the South SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — KFF will expand its Kaiser Health News (KHN) operation and health journalism across the South with $2.3 million in funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)…

As students head back to in-person school this fall, a new KFF brief highlights the effects of the ongoing pandemic on the health and well-being of children, including missed routine vaccinations and preventive care, mental health challenges and economic setbacks that can influence health. There had been over 4 million…

Drug overdose deaths rose during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, with some of the biggest jumps occurring among people of color, a new KFF analysis finds. The analysis breaks out drug overdose deaths by race and ethnicity for the first nine months of 2020, when the pandemic triggered…

Worries about Long-Term and Serious Side Effects are Parents’ Top Concern; Hispanic and Black Parents Are More Likely than White Parents to Cite Access and Cost Issues As schools around the country prepare to reopen, a majority of parents of school-age children say they do not want their children’s schools…

During the pandemic many states have experienced worsening direct care workforce shortages that have affected providers of home- and community-based long-term care services (HCBS), according to early findings of a new KFF survey of Medicaid HCBS programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Most states reported workforce…

Vaccinated Adults Are Nearly Twice as Likely as Unvaccinated Ones to Worry that New Variants Like Delta Will Worsen the Pandemic Nationally and Locally As public health officials struggle to boost vaccination rates nationally, the latest KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor reports that a narrow majority (53%) of unvaccinated adults believe…

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, residents and staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities accounted for a huge share of COVID deaths, but a new KFF analysis finds that they were relatively rare events across the country in June. The analysis finds that 13 states and the District…

As COVID-19 cases increase along with spread of the more transmissible Delta variant, the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines continues to be an important topic. A new KFF analysis looks at COVID-19 vaccine “breakthrough cases,” when fully vaccinated individuals become infected, as well as hospitalizations and deaths, to see which states…

Many people enrolled in Medicare go without dental care, especially beneficiaries of color, according to a new KFF analysis of dental coverage and costs for people with Medicare. Almost half of all Medicare beneficiaries (47%) did not have a dental visit within the past year as of 2018, the analysis…