Medicaid’s Future

As Congress weighs potential cuts in federal Medicaid spending through budget reconciliation, one option under consideration is to limit the use of state taxes on providers. This brief uses data from KFF’s 2024-2025 survey of Medicaid directors to describe states’ current provider taxes and the federal rules governing them.

This brief explores the magnitude of the potential federal Medicaid funding cuts under the House budget resolution. This brief puts the $880 billion in cuts in context by comparing the size of the cuts to states’ tax revenues, spending on education, and the number of Medicaid enrollees covered for that cost.

Program integrity efforts work to prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse, to increase program transparency and accountability, and to recover improperly used funds. This brief explains what is known about improper payments and fraud and abuse in Medicaid and describes ongoing state and federal actions to address program integrity.

This Medicaid waiver tracker page aggregates tracking information on pending and approved Section 1115 Medicaid waivers. It includes resources such as an overview figure, detailed waiver topic tables, and explanatory briefs.

Amid discussion of changes to the Medicaid program, most of the public say that Medicaid is important to their local communities. About two in ten favor cuts to Medicaid spending. Support for Medicaid cuts remain low even among typically conservative groups such as Republicans, Trump voters, and those living in rural communities. The poll also gauges the impact of arguments for and against Medicaid work requirements and reductions to federal spending on ACA expansion.

As Congress considers changes to the Medicaid program as part of the budget debate, relatively few (17%) in the public say they want to see a reduction in Medicaid spending, with larger shares saying they want spending to stay about the same (40%) or increase (42%), a new KFF Health…

We explain the role of Medicaid for hospitals, including how much spending on hospital care comes from Medicaid, the share of births covered by the program, and how Medicaid expansion has impacted hospital finances.

As Congress considers ways to cut Medicaid spending to help finance the extension of federal tax cuts, a new KFF analysis finds that imposing a cap on federal spending per Medicaid enrollee—known as a “per capita cap”—could trigger a decrease in federal Medicaid spending over a 10-year period of $532…

This analysis examines the potential impacts on states, Medicaid enrollees, and providers of implementing a per capita cap on federal Medicaid spending, which is one proposal that has been discussed in Congress. Such a plan could decrease federal Medicaid spending by $532 billion to almost $1 trillion over a 10-year period, depending on how states respond. An estimated 15 million people could lose Medicaid coverage by 2034.

As Congressional Republicans and President Trump search for trillions of dollars in cuts to mandatory federal spending that could help offset the cost of extending expiring tax cuts, this brief analyzes current support from the federal government for health programs and services, including both spending and tax subsidies as context for those federal budget discussions.