Medicaid

The Essentials
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid and Provider Taxes

    As Congress weighs potential cuts in federal Medicaid spending, one option under consideration is to limit the use of state taxes on providers. This brief describe states’ current provider taxes and the federal rules governing them.
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid Work Requirements

    This brief highlights five key facts about Medicaid work requirements, including the share of Medicaid enrollees who currently work, what research shows about the impact of work requirements, and the administrative burdens associated with implementing them.
  • Implementing National Work Requirements

    Federal Medicaid work requirements raise many operational and implementation questions, particularly considering the experience of Arkansas and Georgia with implementing work requirements through waivers.
  • Medicaid Financing: The Basics

    Medicaid represents $1 out of $6 spent on health care in the U.S. and is the major source of financing for state health coverage and long-term services and supports for low-income residents.
     

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.
  • Adults with Mental Illness

    Options under consideration in Congress to significantly reduce Medicaid spending could have major implications for adults who live with mental illness.
  • 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.

key facts about medicaid
  • 5 Facts: Immigrants and Medicaid

    This brief provides five key facts on Medicaid and immigrants as context for understanding the potential impacts of policy changes under the Trump administration.
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid and Hospitals

    This brief explains 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.
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid and Family Planning

    As the largest public payer for family planning services in the US, changes to Medicaid could have a large impact on access to contraception and other family planning care for low-income individuals.
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid for People 50 and Older

    The budget reconciliation bill that includes significant changes to the Medicaid program. Many of the reductions in coverage will be among the 22 million Medicaid enrollees ages 50 and older.
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid and Nursing Facilities

    The substantial Medicaid savings in the reconciliation bill could have major implications for nearly 15,000 federally certified nursing facilities and the 1.2 million people living in them.

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  • No Easy Choices: 5 Options to Respond to Per Capita Caps

    Issue Brief

    Under a per capita cap, per enrollee spending would be capped, but the total amount of federal dollars to states could vary with enrollment changes and states would not be able to impose enrollment caps. Faced with restrictions in federal financing, states would have to make hard choices. This brief outlines the key measures states could use to manage their budgets and the associated challenges under a per capita cap: raise taxes or make other cuts, reduce benefits, limit coverage of high cost enrollees, reduce rates or implement delivery system reforms, and promote personal responsibility. Each option has challenges that are identified in the brief.

  • Strategies to Reduce Medicaid Spending: Findings from a Literature Review

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief considers the feasibility of realizing substantial Medicaid cost savings through strategies aimed at improving delivery system and administrative efficiency. We review the literature about the potential for Medicaid cost savings from four strategies related to acute care services: (1) premiums, cost-sharing, and enrollee wellness incentives, (2) complex care management, (3) patient-centered medical homes, and (4) alternative payment models, and another four strategies related to long-term services and supports: (5) tightening financial eligibility rules for long-term care services, (6) promoting private long-term care insurance, (7) expanding home and community-based services (HCBS), and (8) increasing use of managed long-term services and supports.

  • Ten Things to Know About Medicaid’s Role for Children with Behavioral Health Needs

    Fact Sheet

    Medicaid currently provides federal matching funds with no pre-set limit to help states cover children with behavioral health needs. Restructuring Medicaid financing as proposed in the American Health Care Act could limit states’ ability to care for these children. The following series of graphics highlights Medicaid’s role for children with behavioral health needs.

  • Why Does the Medicaid Debate Matter? National Data and Voices of People with Medicaid Highlight Medicaid’s Role

    Fact Sheet

    President Trump and other GOP leaders have called for far-reaching changes to Medicaid, including caps and reductions in federal funding for the program. This snapshot provides data on the role Medicaid plays for different population groups as well as perspectives from individuals with coverage through the program. Medicaid, the nation’s public health insurance program for low-income children, adults, seniors, and people with disabilities, covers 1 in 5 Americans, including many with complex and costly needs for medical care and long-term services. Most people covered by Medicaid would be uninsured or underinsured without it. The AHCA would fundamentally change Medicaid in the most significant restructuring of the program since 1965.

  • What’s at Stake with ACA Repeal?

    Interactive

    This interactive includes a map and tables that highlight the increases in health insurance coverage through Medicaid and the Marketplaces as well as the increased federal funding that resulted from the implementation of the ACA.

  • The Health Care Views and Experiences of Rural Americans: Findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post Survey of Rural America

    Report

    In partnership with The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted the Survey of Rural America to gauge the views and experiences of people living in small towns and rural areas across the United States, and how they are similar or different from those in urban and suburban settings. This brief explores where health care fits in rural residents' political views, including attitudes toward Republican plans to repeal and replace the ACA as well as views of Medicaid. It also examines how rural Americans' health care experiences compare with their urban and suburban counterparts.

  • Next Steps for CHIP: What is at Stake for Children?

    Fact Sheet

    The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is an important complement to Medicaid, covering 8.4 million children with family incomes above Medicaid eligibility limits who often lack access to affordable private coverage. Following are key facts that highlight what is at stake for children if there is a failure to extend CHIP funding beyond September 2017 and based on changes proposed in the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which would fundamentally restructure Medicaid by capping federal funding and eliminate longstanding federal protections and standards for children.

  • Factors Affecting States’ Ability to Respond to Federal Medicaid Cuts and Caps: Which States Are Most At Risk?

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief examines the factors that could affect states’ ability to cope with reductions in federal Medicaid funding of the sort proposed in the House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA), which would eliminate enhanced federal matching funds for the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and convert Medicaid to a per capita cap or block grant system of financing.