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About Kaiser Health News

Excerpt: In his latest column from his 'Pulling It Together' series, the Kaiser Family Foundation's President and CEO Drew Altman explains the Foundation's new nonprofit health policy news service, Kaiser Health News, set to launch in early June, and why the Foundation developed it and what he hopes it will accomplish.

Kaiser Health Care Public Opinion Tracking Poll -- February 2009 (PDF)

Excerpt: The first Kaiser Health Tracking Poll of 2009 finds the public is increasingly worried about the affordability and availability of care, with many postponing or skipping treatments due to cost in the past year and a notable minority forced into serious financial straits due to medical bills. [The target page has links to the News Release, Key Findings, Chartpack, and Toplines.]

ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today Health Care in America 2006 Survey (PDF)

Excerpt: This poll examines Americans' views and experiences related to health care costs and quality, as well as their attitudes toward possible policy solutions. The results are featured in a series of reports on ABC News programs, ABCNews.com, and in USA Today during the week of Oct. 15, 2006.

Promising Better, Cheaper Care, Kaiser Permanente's National Expansion Faces Wide Skepticism

"Industry experts believe KP's aim is to build a big enough presence across the country to effectively compete with players like Amazon, Aetna CVS Health, Walmart Health, and UnitedHealth Group in providing health care for large corporate customers.... But it's not clear how KP will be able to bring its model, in which facilities and doctors receive a monthly per-member fee for all care, to markets where it doesn't own an integrated system of physicians, hospitals, and health plans, as it does in California."

A Scorecard of What The Health Law Has Delivered, Or Not

"Kaiser Health News consulted the agencies implementing the law to track how some of these new programs are going, and compared that data to the original projections of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Obama administration."

The Average Employer Health Plan Now Costs $15,745, and That's Kind of Good News

"Workers' contributions to their health insurance premiums have grown by 180 percent since 1999. Earnings, meanwhile, have grown just a quarter as fast. The average health insurance plan offered by a large company now costs $15,745. That's the bad news. But there's also some good news buried in this report: Health insurance premiums rose by 4 percent between 2011 and 2012. That's not nothing, but it's a whole lot less than the double-digit premium increases that were common about a decade ago. In fact, since 2004, the Kaiser Family Foundation has not seen any double-digit increases at all. Just like national health expenditures, employer-based premiums are seeing a cost-growth slowdown."

Tracking Health Reform Law Court Challenges

More than two dozen federal lawsuits are seeking to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. [Kaiser Health News] is tracking the status of the lawsuits, providing information on the plaintiffs, judges, decisions and pending appeals, with links to in-depth articles, KHN's news summaries, and related documents.

Several News Organizations Publish Explainers and Fact Checkers on Health Reform Bills

Excerpt: The Los Angeles Times provides a Q&A that dissects the costs and various proposals of the pending Democratic healthcare bills. 'The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that after revenue-generating provisions and savings in Medicare and Medicaid, the House bill would add $239 billion to the deficit over 10 years.' The Times also examines which plans qualify as so-called Cadillac plans and how the government might 'squeeze savings out of Medicare without cutting patient services' (Geiger and Oliphant, 8/31). The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.) has 'a look at the differentiating factors between the main bill, the House Tri-Committee bill commonly known as H.B. 3200, and various proposals and other bills on the table' (8/29).

Health Premiums Rise a Relatively Modest 4 Percent, Study Finds

"Health insurance premiums rose 4 percent for family coverage this year, well below last year's increase and half the 8 percent average of the previous decade -- largely because people used less health care in an uncertain economy. Family plan premiums hit $15,745 on average, while premiums for single employees rose to $5,615, according to a survey of employers ... by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust."

Nine Experts Weigh in on Plan to Replace Public Option in Health Bill

"Trying to apply the [Federal Employee Health Benefits Program] model to expand insurance coverage has been suggested before. Kaiser Health News staff writers contacted health policy experts about the advantages and disadvantages of such a plan and whether it would help control costs. Here are edited excerpts from those interviews[.]"