Medicaid

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Medicaid: What to Watch in 2026

Medicaid: What to Watch in 2026

In this brief, KFF explores how state fiscal pressures are likely to converge with the implementation of the 2025 reconciliation law to affect Medicaid coverage, financing, and access to care over the next year, especially leading up to the midterm elections.

Medicaid Watch

Featuring policy research, polling and news about how Medicaid is changing, and the impact of those changes due to the tax and spending cuts law

Medicaid Work Requirements

Tracking Medicaid Work Requirements: u003cbru003eData and Policies

To implement Medicaid work requirements, states will need to make important policy and operational decisions, implement needed system upgrades or changes, develop new outreach and education strategies, and hire and train staff, all within a relatively short timeframe. The information tracked here can serve as a resource to understand Medicaid work requirements and state options, gauge readiness, and track implementation of the requirements.

understanding medicaid

Medicaid Financing

Medicaid represents $1 out of every $5 spent on health care in the U.S. and is the major source of financing for states to provide health coverage and long-term care. This brief examines key questions about Medicaid financing and how it works.

Medicaid and Provider Taxes

All states except Alaska cover some state Medicaid costs with taxes on health care providers. This brief uses data from KFF’s 2024-2025 survey of Medicaid directors to describe current practices and the federal rules governing them.

5 Facts: Medicaid and Hospitals

Absorbing reductions in Medicaid spending could be challenging for hospitals, particularly for those that are financially vulnerable. This brief provides data on the reach of Medicaid across hospitals, patients, and charity care.

Medicaid Home Care in 2025

This issue brief provides an overview of what Medicaid home care (also known as “home- and community-based services”) is, who is covered, and what services were available in 2025.

5 Facts: Medicaid Program Integrity

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.

2025 Medicaid Home Care survey

Payment Rates Ahead of 2025 Reconciliation Law

This issue brief describes Medicaid payment rates for home care and other workforce supports that are in place in 2025, before the majority of the 2025 reconciliation law provisions start taking effect.

Home Care Support for Family Caregivers in 2025
number of responding states, including DC, that allow payments for family caregivers by type of home care program and type of caregiver.

This issue brief describes the availability of self-directed services and supports for family caregivers in Medicaid home care in 2025, before most provisions in the reconciliation law take effect.

States’ Management of Home Care Spending

This issue brief describes the mechanisms states are currently using to limit Medicaid spending on home care and their plans for adopting new mechanisms in state fiscal year (FY) 2026.

Waiting Lists for Medicaid Home Care, 2016 to 2025
A Look at Waiting Lists for Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services from 2016 to 2025

This data note provides new information about waiting lists in Medicaid home care before many of the provisions in the 2025 reconciliation law go into effect.

Eligibility and coverage
  • Eligibility, Enrollment, and Renewal Policies

    KFF's survey findings capture state actions that seek to improve the accuracy and efficiency of Medicaid and CHIP enrollment and renewal processes, as of January 2025.
  • Seniors and People with Disabilities

    More than 1 in 3 people with disabilities (15 million) have Medicaid (35%). In comparison, only 19% of people without disabilities have Medicaid.
  • Children with Special Needs

    Amid debates about proposed cuts to federal Medicaid spending, this brief analyzes key characteristics of children with special health care needs and explores how Medicaid provides them with coverage.
  • People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

    Among the estimated 8 million people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), over three million have Medicaid coverage.
  • Adults with Chronic Conditions

    Among working age adults enrolled in Medicaid, approximately three quarters have one or more chronic conditions, and nearly one-third have three or more.

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  • Medicaid’s Role in Tennessee

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides data on Medicaid's role in Tennessee and describes how implementing a per capita cap or block grant would affect Tennessee.

  • Medicaid’s Role in Kentucky

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides data on Medicaid's role in Kentucky. It describes how ending the enhanced match for Medicaid expansion and implementing a per capita cap or block grant would affect Kentucky.

  • Medicaid’s Role in Ohio

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides data on Medicaid's role in Ohio. It describes how ending the enhanced match for Medicaid expansion and implementing a per capita cap or block grant would affect Ohio.

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll – July 2017: What’s Next for Republican ACA Repeal and Replacement Plan Efforts?

    Feature

    As the U.S. Senate continues to debate their plan to repeal and replace the ACA, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll finds the public souring on the effort with a growing majority opposed to the plan and a large share that say the plan does not fulfill most of the promises President Trump has made about health care. Even among Republicans, the poll finds that about half would be “less likely” to support the…

  • State-by-State Estimates of Reductions in Federal Medicaid Funding Under Repeal of the ACA Medicaid Expansion

    Issue Brief

    Congressional debate around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has recently included a proposal to repeal the ACA, including the provision allowing states to extend Medicaid to childless adults up to 138% FPL and providing enhanced federal funds for the Medicaid expansion. This brief provides estimates of changes in federal Medicaid funds and Medicaid coverage for adults covered through the ACA expansion if the expansion is eliminated starting in 2020. A repeal of the Medicaid expansion…

  • Senate Health Bill Proposes Big Changes to Medicaid Beyond Repealing and Replacing the ACA

    News Release

    The Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) under consideration in Congress includes provisions that would fundamentally change Medicaid by phasing out extra federal funding for states’ Medicaid expansions and for the first time limiting federal spending on Medicaid through a per enrollee cap on financing or a block grant for certain adults. While those measures account for most of the bill’s $756 billion reduction in federal Medicaid spending over the next decade, there are other big…

  • 50-State Survey Finds Medicaid Enrollment Growth Slowing, with an Uptick in Spending Growth Driven by Provider Rate Increases and Rising Costs for Rx Drugs and Long-Term Care  

    News Release

    Medicaid enrollment growth slowed to 2.7 percent in state fiscal year 2017, down from 3.9 percent the prior year and far off the peak of 13.2 percent in 2015 that followed implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Findings of Kaiser’s 17th annual 50-state survey of Medicaid directors across the country suggest the slowdown in enrollment growth may be attributable to the tapering…

  • How Medicaid Section 1115 Waivers Are Evolving: Early Insights About What to Watch

    Issue Brief

    While efforts to pass major federal legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and restructure and reduce federal Medicaid financing may be on hold temporarily, the focus of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and states is expected to turn to achieving significant Medicaid program changes through Section 1115 demonstration waivers. This issue brief presents three questions to help analyze the evolution of federal waiver policy as new waiver proposals…