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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 and work

Tracking Medicaid Work Requirements:
Data 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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  • Medicare and Medicaid at 50

    Video

    With Medicare and Medicaid turning 50 this year, this updated video provides a brief history of both programs, including: an examination of the health care, social and political landscape that gave rise to them, the significant ways each program has evolved over five decades, and the important roles they play in the U.S. health care system. The video includes archival footage, as well as commentary and perspective from policymakers, government officials and experts.

  • Public vs. Private Health Insurance on Controlling Spending

    News Release

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman analyzes whether public or private health insurance does a better job of controlling costs. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.

  • Evolving Picture of Nine Safety-Net Hospitals: Implications of the ACA and Other Strategies

    Issue Brief

    Safety-net hospitals are an integral part of the U.S. health care landscape, providing care to some of the nation’s most medically vulnerable populations, including Medicaid enrollees and the uninsured. With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the U.S. health care system is rapidly changing, and safety-net hospitals need to make major adjustments to survive in the post-reform environment. This brief draws on interviews with executives at nine safety-net hospital systems and examines how their hospitals have fared since major coverage provisions of the ACA came into effect in January 2014. The brief also examines new and ongoing strategies that the hospitals are adopting in the face of a quickly changing health care environment. While acknowledging the importance of the ACA, executives at each system in the study noted that other non-ACA related factors have also shaped how their hospitals fared over the last year. The hospitals in the study were: Cook County Health and Hospital System (CCHHS); Denver Health (Denver Health); Harris Health System (Harris Health); New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC); Parkland Health and Hospital System (Parkland); Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System (SCVHHS); San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH); University Medical Center of Southern Nevada (UMC), and Virginia Commonwealth University Health System (VCU). These hospitals participated in two earlier related studies that examined how the systems were preparing for health care reform.

  • How Are Hospitals Faring Under the Affordable Care Act? Early Experiences from Ascension Health

    Issue Brief

    Expanded health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is having a major impact on many of the nation’s hospitals through increases in the demand for care, increased patient revenues, and lower uncompensated care costs for the uninsured. This report examines the early experiences with the ACA by Ascension Health, the delivery subsidiary of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health system, Ascension. It finds that, overall, Ascension hospitals in Medicaid expansion states saw increased Medicaid discharges, increased Medicaid revenue, and decreased cost of care for the poor, while hospitals in non-expansion states saw a very small increase in Medicaid discharges, a decline in Medicaid revenue, and growth in cost of care to the poor.

  • Medicaid at 50

    Report

    The Medicaid program, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 30, 1965, will reach its 50th anniversary this year, a historic milestone. This report reflects on Medicaid’s accomplishments and challenges and considers the issues on the horizon that will influence the course of this major health coverage and financing program moving forward.

  • Medicaid Enrollment: An Overview of the CMS April 2014 Update

    Fact Sheet

    CMS recently released its latest update on Medicaid and CHIP enrollment data, covering the period through April 2014. This fact sheet provides a brief overview of the latest data and what it suggests about the impact of the ACA on Medicaid and CHIP enrollment, providing historical trends for context

  • Advancing Opportunities, Assessing Challenges: Key Themes from a Roundtable Discussion of Health Care and Health Equity in the South

    Issue Brief

    This brief summarizes the primary themes expressed by participants of a roundtable discussion of current and future opportunities and challenges for advancing health care and health equity in the South organized by Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

  • What Worked and What’s Next? Strategies in Four States Leading ACA Enrollment Efforts

    Issue Brief

    This brief highlights the experiences of four states—Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Washington—that established a State-based Marketplace (SBM), implemented the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, and achieved success enrolling eligible individuals into coverage. Based on interviews with key stakeholders in each state, it identifies effective strategies that contributed to enrollment and current priorities looking forward.

  • Medicaid Medically Needy Programs: An Important Source of Medicaid Coverage

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief provides an overview of Medicaid's medically needy program; describes how it works for persons with disabilities, the elderly, and low-income families; and highlights some key issues surrounding the program. Included in the paper are hypothetical examples of ways in which individuals can qualify for the medically needy program and are intended for illustrative purposes only.