Rakesh Singh

Quiz - How Well Do You Understand Your Health Insurance? | KFF Health insurance is often complicated, but understanding the basics helps you make better decisions about your coverage and care. This 10-question quiz touches on some terms you may encounter.

Health insurance can be confusing.

How well do you understand:
• Deductibles
• Copays vs. coinsurance
• Out-of-network bills
• Surprise billing protections
• Prior authorization

Take @kff.org's 10-question quiz and share it with someone who could use it.
www.kff.org/private-insu...

Oh no!

We put together a great new resource of all of our polling on health information and public trust.

We will be updating it OFTEN and it can be your go-to source for our latest polling on these topics. Bookmark it!

Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Affordable Care Act | KFF Take this ten-question quiz to see how much you know about how the ACA affects health insurance coverage and costs as well as who is eligible for financial assistance

Snowed in? A few minutes is enough to test your knowledge of how court rulings, reconciliation bills, and expiring provisions affect the Affordable Care Act.

Try this ACA knowledge quiz. ⬇️
www.kff.org/affordable-c...

State Recommendations for Routine Childhood Vaccines: Increasing Departure from Federal Guidelines | KFF Starting in May of last year, HHS Secretary Kennedy and the CDC/ACIP began to make changes to the federal vaccine schedule for children, culminating in an announcement on January 5 of this year with t...

NEW: Our latest count of the # of states that have decoupled their childhood vaccine recommendations form the federal government: it's now up to 28. A big increase from just a few months ago.
www.kff.org/state-health...

It's a hard test!

Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Affordable Care Act | KFF Take this ten-question quiz to see how much you know about how the ACA affects health insurance coverage and costs as well as who is eligible for financial assistance

While federal policy debate continues on the Affordable Care Act's future structure, how well do you understand what the ACA actually does today and what could change next?
Take @kff.org's new quiz and share your score.⬇️ www.kff.org/affordable-c...

The federal government has announced that 22.8 million people have signed up for ACA marketplace coverage for this year, down 1.5 million from last year with enhanced tax credits expiring. The coverage loss will likely grow as people don’t actually make their premium payments.

The New Federal Vaccine Schedule for Children: What Changed and What Are the Implications? | KFF This brief looks at newly announced changes by HHS to the pediatric vaccination schedule, which reduce the number of vaccines recommended for all children. Implications of these changes for childhood ...

NEW: Our take on HHS' changes to the federal vaccine schedule that reduce the number of routinely recommended vaccines for kids, and now make the U.S. an outlier in recommending so few. w/ @joshmich.bsky.social

www.kff.org/other-health...

Graphic with a quote from KFF’s Josh Michaud that reads “Adopting Denmark’s vaccine schedule, as HHS Secretary Kennedy's vaccine advisors have suggested, would likely lower childhood vaccination rates in the U.S. as certain vaccines become harder to access.”

⚡ Do we want to outsource U.S. vaccine policy to Denmark? KFF’s Josh Michaud looks at the implications of such a change in recommendations that HHS is reportedly considering: on.kff.org/44EzROx #QuickTake

With no extension of enhanced tax credits, ACA enrollees are going to start the year with premium payments increasing by an average of 114%, or over $1,000 a year per person. Some will find a way to pay it, some have switched to higher deductibles, and some have dropped coverage.

Tracking Implementation of the 2025 Reconciliation Law: Medicaid Work Requirements | KFF KFF's interactive tracks key data and policies that will affect how states implement Medicaid work requirements, which are required under the 2025 budget reconciliation law starting in January 2027. T...

@kff.org released an interactive tool to track national and state data and policy, federal guidance, state implementation decisions and 1115 waivers related to #Medicaid work requirements. Check it out and bookmark the page as we will be making updates over time www.kff.org/medicaid/med...

Why We Are Stuck with Prior Authorization Review Prior authorization review frustrates patients and physicians, but we likely can’t just eliminate it. In his new column, President and CEO Dr. Drew Altman discusses why, and why the focus is now inste...

No one likes prior authorization review. But could we get rid of it? My new column: www.kff.org/from-drew-al...

KFF graphic featuring a quote from Samantha Artiga, KFF vice president and director of the Racial Equity and Health Policy Program. It says, “These changes would significantly increase immigration officers’ discretion in making public charge decisions and could allow them to consider factors that had been excluded under the 2022 rule, including use of health, nutrition, and housing programs such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”

⚡ KFF’s @sartiga.bsky.social explains that the proposed change to the public charge rule would likely lead to further declines in use of health care and programs among immigrant families. #QuickTake https://on.kff.org/445QwKs

Really excited to share our latest survey of immigrants work @kff.org. We're able to see how immigrants are faring now amid increased immigration enforcement compared to 2023. Check out our KFF reports below and stories from @nytimes.com

Under Trump, Immigrants Are More Fearful but Determined to Stay, Poll Finds

Our survey of immigrants with the NYT, out now, shows while the immigration crackdown has caused fear and anxiety, immigrants still prefer the U.S. to where they came from and are optimistic about the future.

With that resilience, nativism can’t win long term.

Trump revives policy penalizing immigrants for using safety net programs The public charge rule makes it harder for legal Medicaid enrollees to obtain a green card.

BREAKING: Trump is restoring a rule that penalizes lawfully present immigrants who use Medicaid, arguing that “government benefits should not incentivize immigration.”

Advocates warn the rule will cause both individual suffering & negative population-wide effects.

www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

Map of the United States showing the share of veterans ages 19 and older enrolled in Medicaid by state, categorized in three groups: 6%-8%, 9%-12% and 13%-15%. States are color-coded. Source: KFF estimates based on the 2023 American Community Survey, 1-Year Estimates

The share of veterans enrolled in Medicaid varies across states, ranging from as low as 6% in North Dakota and New Hampshire to as high as 15% in Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, and New York. https://on.kff.org/4p2i3Vl

State Awards From Most of the Rural Health Fund Could Vary Only Modestly Despite Large Differences in Rural Needs | KFF This brief provides estimates of how $37.5 billion of the $50 billion rural health fund could be distributed across states if all states are approved for funding. Awards from the $37.5 billion could r...

The July 2025 reconciliation law created a $50B rural health fund to help offset the impact of the law on rural areas. Our brief suggests that state awards from most of the fund could vary only modestly despite large differences in rural health needs 👇(1/9): www.kff.org/state-health...

Trump's weight loss drug deal promises big savings — but some details are murky Experts say the deal to lower the cost of the drugs is ambitious, but left some with more questions than answers.

NEW: Trump's weight loss drug deal promises big savings — but some details are murky

www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

What the Election Results Tell Us about the Economy and Health Care Costs After Tuesday's elections, it is becoming increasingly difficult to disentangle concerns about the economy and concerns about health care as costs become the most pressing health care issue for voters...

We also play this out in the 2025 election on Tuesday www.kff.org/quick-take/w...

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the 2025 World Series MVP 🏆

He joins Hideki Matsui (2009) as the only Japanese-born winners of the award.

To anyone not into baseball I’m sorry but also get into baseball

KFF graphic featuring a quote from Cynthia Cox, KFF Vice President and Director of the Program on the ACA. It says, “The amount health insurers charge for coverage on the ACA Marketplaces is rising 26%, on average, in 2026... Most enrollees would face even sharper increases in what they pay if they ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits expire.”

Across all states, benchmark ACA premiums will rise an average of 26% next year, though most enrollees would see sharper increases if the enhanced tax credits expire.

KFF’s Cynthia Cox explains the numbers. #QuickTake https://on.kff.org/3WNhiDz

Leaving it all out there, illustrated.

Millions of Americans are bracing themselves for a significant hike in their 2026 health insurance premiums without the subsidies at the center of the government shutdown battle. It comes as insurance costs are rising significantly throughout the country.

Shohei Ohtani Just Had the Best Playoff Game in Major League History Ohtani’s Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS is the Millennial version of Bob Gibson’s Game 7 of the 1967 World Series.

Shohei Ohtani Just Had the Best Playoff Game in Major League History blogs.fangraphs.com/shohei-ohtan...

The workers whose health care is most at stake in the government shutdown About 10 million small-business owners, employees and the self-employed are caught in the middle of the shutdown fight over the Affordable Care Act.

They are restaurateurs and beauticians, chiropractors and funeral directors. They are freelancers, contractors and gig workers.

And they now find themselves stuck in the middle of the political battle that has shut down the government.

From our just updated Health Policy 101 chapter, Congress and the Executive Branch and Health Policy www.kff.org/state-health...

Reminder, going into this year, HHS had more than 80,000 employees located across the U.S. and the world, and half of the workforce was outside the greater Washington, D.C. area. www.kff.org/affordable-c...