Medicaid

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Medicaid/CHIP Monthly Enrollment Tracker

Medicaid enrollment declined by 5 million people (6%) from May 2025 through May 2026. Child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP declined in 49 states and DC, and adult enrollment dropped in all but five states (IA, MO, NC, OK, SD). KFF's tracker presents the most recent Medicaid enrollment data by month and state.

Medicaid work requirements

Medicaid and the Road Ahead: Spending Cuts, Work Requirements and What’s Next for States, Providers and Families

Event Date:

Passed last year, President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act made significant changes to Medicaid—the primary insurance provider for health and long-term care for people with low incomes. These changes are expected to lead to coverage loss for many current enrollees and will reduce funding for Medicaid, placing new financial pressures on states and health care providers. On July 23, KFF and States Newsroom hosted an event focused on the impacts of work requirements and other federal policy changes on states, health care systems, and people.

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 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.

Medicaid and Provider Taxes

All states except Alaska cover some state Medicaid costs with taxes on health care providers. This brief describes states’ current provider taxes and explores how rules governing provider taxes are changing.

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

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.

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  • Where is Medicaid Spending Headed? – Report

    Report

    Where is Medicaid Spending Headed? Prepared for: The Kaiser Commission on the Future of Medicaid Prepared by: John Holahan and David Liska, The Urban Institute December 1996 In 1995, the United States witnessed a major debate over the future course of the Medicaid program. At the heart of this debate were the individual entitlement to benefits, the desire to limit federal spending, and the degree of control and flexibility given to states over their separate…

  • Where is Medicaid Spending Headed?

    Other Post

    Enrollment Another important factor is that Medicaid enrollment increases slowed substantially. After increasing by 7.9 percent annually between 1988 and 1992, enrollment growth slowed to 5.3 percent per year in the following three years (Table 2). Table 3 shows that the rate of growth in enrollment of Medicaid beneficiaries slowed between 1991 and 1995. Enrollment growth increased by 11 percent in 1992 but by only 1.8 percent in 1995. Enrollment growth among the aged slowed…

  • Overview of Medicaid Managed Care Provisions in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997

    Other Post

    11. Implications For Safety Net Providers Medicaid's transition from fee-for-service to managed care has enormous implications for safety net providers - those hospitals and clinics that deliver basic health care to large numbers of the uninsured. Medicaid has been a major revenue source for many of these providers, because it has reimbursed for the care and services they deliver to low-income patients who, without Medicaid coverage, generally would have no other source of payment. The…

  • CHIP TIPS: New Federal Funding Available to Cover Immigrant Children and Pregnant Women

    Issue Brief

    This brief examines a new option under the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 that allows states to receive federal funds for providing Medicaid and CHIP coverage to lawfully residing immigrant children and pregnant women regardless of when they entered the country. Previously, states had been prohibited from using federal Medicaid or CHIP funds to cover legal immigrants who had been in the country fewer than five years. The brief, the fifth installment…

  • State Medicaid Coverage of Family Planning Services: Summary of State Survey Findings

    Other Post

    State Medicaid Coverage of Family Planning Services: Summary of State Survey Findings Over the past two decades, Medicaid has played a central and growing role in financing and providing access to family planning services for low-income women. About two-thirds of women covered by Medicaid are of child-bearing age, and for this group of women, access to family planning services fills a key health need. This report highlights findings from the 2007/2008 State Survey of Reproductive…

  • Building an Express Lane Eligibility Initiative: A Roadmap of Key Decisions for States

    Issue Brief

    The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) provides states new options to reach and enroll the estimated 5 million eligible but uninsured low-income children into Medicaid and CHIP. One key tool provided to states by the law is Express Lane Eligibility (ELE), which allows state Medicaid and CHIP agencies to borrow and rely on eligibility findings from other need-based programs, such as Head Start and the National School Lunch Program, to determine…

  • Pulling it Together: An Actuarial Rorschach Test

    Perspective

    Drew Altman, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton My colleagues have worked on this column with me and I invited them to join me as authors. As with pretty much every other discussion of health care going back to the days of Roosevelt, the great reform debate of 2009 (and now 2010) has been distilled into an ideological battle over the role of government. A government-sponsored "public option" has been off the table for a while now,…

  • Resources Examine Medicaid Enrollment Growth And State Budget Pressures

    Fact Sheet

    This package of resources examines the substantial enrollment growth in Medicaid between June 2008 and June 2009 and provides a mid fiscal-year 2010 update on key state Medicaid issues, including the impacts of the economic downturn. News ReleaseWith the country in a deep recession, nearly 3.3 million more people were enrolled in state Medicaid programs in June 2009 compared to the previous June, according to a new analysis, Medicaid Enrollment: June 2009 Data Snapshot (updated for…

  • Medicaid and Budget Reconciliation:  Implications of the Conference Report

    Issue Brief

    Medicaid and Budget Reconciliation: Implications of the Conference Report This issue brief provides an overview of the federal budget context and then highlights key Medicaid savings proposals in the budget reconciliation conference bill and discusses the implications of the proposed changes. Issue Brief (.pdf)