Eligibility

On Friday, Oct. 18, KFF released its 19th annual 50-state Medicaid budget survey for state fiscal years 2019 and 2020. KFF and the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD) held a joint briefing to discuss trends in enrollment and spending and highlight key Medicaid policy developments.

Medicaid eligibility, seniors, people with disabilities

This brief describes federal citizenship and immigration status eligibility and eligibility verification requirements for Medicaid. Eligibility for federally-funded coverage under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program is limited to U.S. citizens and certain lawfully present immigrants.

KFF’s new interactive maps illustrate how many people are enrolled in Medicaid, including eligibility groups and the percentage enrolled, for each congressional district.

This issue brief draws from the KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants and other KFF analyses to highlight immigrants’ health care eligibility, healthcare use and costs, as well as their contributions to the economy and workforce.

Some critics of Medicaid expansion have argued that expansion diverts resources away from other groups of Medicaid enrollees, including people with disabilities and children, and that expansion enrollees are “able-bodied” implying they have minimal health care needs. However, data show that expansion states spend more per enrollee overall and on each eligibility group than non-expansion states and that nearly half of expansion enrollees have a chronic condition. This data note analyzes 2021 Medicaid claims data to compare utilization of health care services among Medicaid expansion enrollees with other Medicaid enrollees in expansion states and to compare utilization of health care services among adult Medicaid enrollees living in expansion and non-expansion states.

The unwinding of pandemic enrollment protections in Medicaid helped accelerate states’ expansion of eligibility for key groups and adoption of policy and system changes to streamline renewal processes for enrollees, according to findings from a new KFF survey of state Medicaid officials. These changes mean that the return to “routine”…

This analysis examines who was eligible for Medicare and/or Medicaid between 2002 and 2022 because they received disability benefits from one of the country’s Social Security disability programs, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Many who receive SSDI and SSI qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, known as dual-eligible individuals.