The media is much too focused on issue rankings in polls : economy, corruption etc. Partisan affiliation, the perceived qualities of candidates, the general mood of the country, attitudes towards Trump together can matter more.
Add a 9% increase in the worker share of premiums to Medicaid cuts and ACA marketplace premium hikes and you can understand why health costs are tied with gas prices as a cost of living concern for voters.
Our 28th employer health benefits survey is out: on.kff.org/ehbs2026
You may see polls ranking “healthcare” third or fourth as a voter priority. That’s NOT the story now. “Health care costs” are a top voter cost of living concern right up there with gas prices. My latest column: kff.org/from-drew-altman/a-g…
Important to add that virtually all of this “fraudulent” enrollment came from brokers manipulating the administration’s own federal exchange and little to none the many states based marketplaces. nytimes.com/2026/09/22/us/po…
We don’t take federal (or corporate) funding but I always thought theoretically we could accept NIH peer reviewed funding. Not so much now: politico.com/news/2026/09/19…
With the exception of a few “ company towns” that are not typical, most corporations don’t have the leverage to influence health costs significantly in the markets they operate in.
I have studied corporations and health costs for 45 yrs. Their bark far exceeds their bite on health costs, and much of the talk comes from health benefits people; CEO’s have many other fish to fry.
A caution. Usually, and for years, predicted increases in employer health premiums have significantly exceeded actual increases, for a bunch of reasons. But every year we think this is the year they will come true.
Dr Al-Sayeed’s win today means we will be getting a lot of questions about Medicare for All at KFF. But we are far from a policy debate about how it might work, be paid for, what the tradeoffs might be. For now M4A is rallying cry; it would not actually be the Medicare program.
What’s the top issue… gas prices, health care costs, housing cost, food? Don’t believe the rankings in the polls — there isn’t one. My new column: on.kff.org/4bkVree
Why we do many of our polls with major news organizations, on all kinds of issues not just health. My latest in my Untold History of KFF series: on.kff.org/4vHtNzc
I bet you didn’t know we ran media campaigns all over the world, even in Putin’s Russia. I continue to write about our “untold” stories: on.kff.org/3QUvoDN
Social media makes the anti science, anti vax crowd seem much larger than it is. Surveys show it’s actually a very small share of the public greatly outnumbered by science believers. My new column: on.kff.org/4wthpni
We have been about two things: policy and media, from day one. And before KFF Health News there was Kaisernetwork.org. Volume 2 in my KFF history tour: on.kff.org/4vLMtii
As we head towards a leadership change next year, I’m reviewing the most innovative things we’ve done since I founded KFF in a special series of columns.
First, our decades long program in South Africa, as they advance in the World Cup: on.kff.org/4eupmmj