News

The average Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace deductible experienced the steepest increase in history—growing by 37% or over $1,000, from $2,759 in 2025 to $3,786 in 2026 as enhanced premium tax credits expired, according to a new KFF analysis. After the enhanced tax credits ended, many Marketplace shoppers shifted toward lower-premium, higher-deductible plans.

This analysis examines early indicators of how the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits has affected effectuated enrollment levels (i.e., enrollment among people who have paid their premiums), plan selections, and out-of-pocket costs in 2026, drawing on plan selection and effectuated enrollment data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and state-based Marketplace…

What does AI mean for patients in bed and doctors at the bedside? Host Chip Kahn and guest Dr. Robert Wachter, Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, discuss whether AI will produce a different kind of doctor in the future — a “clinician curator rather than a clinician-diagnostician.”…

This brief compares the prices paid by private insurers for hospital care to increases in Medicare payment using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Producer Price Index (PPI), finding that hospital prices have risen much faster for private insurance than Medicare since 2019.

In the 39 states that are adopting or may adopt the high unemployment hardship exception, about 1.4 million or 7.5% of Medicaid expansion enrollees live in one of the 133 counties that currently meet the high-unemployment criteria.

An overview of PEPFAR reporting requirements under current and past law.

The American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) recognized KFF’s Mollyann Brodie, Ph.D., with the AAPOR Award for Distinguished Achievement for her outstanding leadership and contributions to the field of public opinion research over three decades. Also, KFF’s Surveys of Immigrants received the 2026 AAPOR Inclusive Voices Award, which recognizes work examining complex challenges related…

This brief summarizes the history, rationale, and policy issues related to the federal government’s key vaccine injury compensation programs, known as the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

State Medicaid and public health agencies both work to advance the health of their communities, often pursuing similar priorities and serving similar populations. This brief examines findings from KFF’s 25th annual Medicaid budget survey, which asked state Medicaid directors about new or enhanced initiatives involving public health in FY 2025 or planned for FY 2026.

KFF’s latest Health Tracking Poll finds that confidence in the independence of key government health agencies overseeing food and drug safety and public health is low among the public and across partisans. Most of the public also share a distrust of agriculture, food, and pharmaceutical companies to act in the public’s best interest, compared with…