Medicaid

Medicaid work requirements

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

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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.

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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 uses data from KFF’s 2024-2025 survey of Medicaid directors to describe current practices and the federal rules governing them.

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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    Fact Sheet

    Community health centers see over 25 million patients in medically underserved rural and urban areas throughout the country. A key source of their federal funding expired September 30, 2017. This fact sheet looks at how health centers are responding to the funding delay and uncertainty.

  • What Initiatives Are States Considering To Control Prescription Drug Costs in Medicaid?

    News Release

    Rising Medicaid spending on prescription drugs has prompted many states to look for new ways to control such costs. Although drug spending increased more slowly in 2016 than in the previous two years, and although such expenditures constitute only six percent of all Medicaid spending (compared to 10% of national health spending), the high cost of specialty drugs continues to be a particular concern among Medicaid policy directors. A new issue brief from the Kaiser…

  • Medicaid’s Role for Children with Special Health Care Needs: A Look at Eligibility, Services, and Spending

    Issue Brief

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  • Community Health Centers: Growing Importance in a Changing Health Care System

    Issue Brief

    Community health centers provide essential access to comprehensive primary care in underserved communities. This issue brief describes health centers and their patients in 2016 and examines changes in access to care and utilization of services by health center patients following implementation of the ACA coverage expansions in 2014.

  • Red-State Changes Could Strengthen ACA, Medicaid

    From Drew Altman

    In an Axios column, Drew Altman discusses how, ironically, efforts by red states to move their ACA marketplaces and their Medicaid programs in  more conservative directions could end up strengthening the ACA and Medicaid politically over the longer term.

  • Using Medicaid to Wrap Around Private Insurance: Key Questions to Consider

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief raises three key questions for consideration if using Medicaid to wrap around private coverage is going to be considered as an alternative to the ACA's Medicaid expansion under the BCRA. We draw on existing information about state Medicaid premium assistance programs to date, the administrative complexity involved, and the financing implications of premium assistance programs.

  • Medicaid Enrollees and Work Requirements: Lessons From the TANF Experience

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief considers the implications of conditioning Medicaid eligibility on satisfying a work requirement, drawing on state experience with TANF enrollees subject to a work requirement over the past two decades and data about work and the role of health coverage among Medicaid enrollees today.

  • Medicaid: What We Learned From the Recent Debate and What to Watch for in September 2017

    Issue Brief

    The inclusion of major Medicaid changes in both the American Health Care Act (AHCA) that passed in the House and the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) considered in the Senate revealed that is hard to gain consensus on significant cuts and reforms to Medicaid. Medicaid has broad general support and intense support from special populations served by the program. In addition, proposed changes would have different implications across states due to significant program variation across…