Policy Watch
Quick-hitting policy analysis, polling, and updates on the key issues facing the country.
Implementing Work Requirements on a National Scale: What We Know from State Waiver Experience
On May 18, the House Budget Committee advanced a budget reconciliation bill that includes significant changes to the Medicaid program. As anticipated, Medicaid work requirement provisions are included and preliminary estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show that this provision would reduce federal spending by $280 billion over ten years, nearly half of all estimated Medicaid savings in the bill. The provisions raise many operational and implementation questions, particularly considering the experience of Arkansas and Georgia with implementing work requirements through waivers.
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Potential Impacts of 2025 Budget Reconciliation on Health Coverage for Immigrant Families
This policy watch discusses key provisions in the draft 2025 budget reconciliation legislation that are aimed at limiting health coverage for immigrant families.
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How Will the 2025 Budget Reconciliation Affect the ACA, Medicaid, and the Uninsured Rate?
This analysis details the number of people who would become uninsured from policy changes in the ACA Marketplace and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, taken together, these changes will result in at least 13.7 million more uninsured people in the year 2034 than would otherwise be the case.
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Implications of Congress Eliminating Major Biden Era Regulations for Medicaid
The Biden administration finalized several major Medicaid regulations with the intent of improving access to Medicaid services. Collectively, the rules span hundreds of pages of text, are extremely complex, and were set to be implemented over several years, with measurable increases in federal Medicaid spending. Overturning the rules would reduce regulation of managed care companies, nursing facilities, and other providers; increase barriers to enrolling in and renewing Medicaid coverage, and roll back enrollee protections, payment transparency, and requirements for improved access.
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What Does the Future Hold for the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative (EHE)?
This analysis examines what the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative has done to date and what its future might look like under the second Trump administration.
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The Effect of Delaying the Selection of Small Molecule Drugs for Medicare Drug Price Negotiation
In a new Trump administration executive order, the Secretary of HHS is directed to work with Congress to implement a change in law to delay negotiation of so-called “small molecule” drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program for an additional 4 years. This brief analyzes how many of the drugs previously selected for negotiation would not have been eligible if this policy had been in place at the time.
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