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:
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’s Role in Health-Care Payment Reform

    News Release

    In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explores whether Secretary Burwell's announcement this week about Medicare's payment reform initiative is another sign that the public sector is becoming the engine driving payment and delivery reform. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.

  • Medicare’s Role in Health-Care Payment Reform

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explores whether Secretary Burwell's announcement this week about Medicare's payment reform initiative is another sign that the public sector is becoming the engine driving payment and delivery reform.

  • Proposed Medicaid Expansion in Tennessee

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet describes Tennessee’s 1115 waiver demonstration project, Insure Tennessee, which expands the State’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.

  • Tapping Nurse Practitioners to Meet Rising Demand for Primary Care

    Issue Brief

    More than 58 million Americans, or nearly 1 in 5, live in primary care shortage areas, where the supply of primary care physicians is not sufficient to meet the needs of the population. Particularly as the demand for primary care increases due to population growth, aging, and expanded insurance coverage, strategies to mitigate already sharp strains on primary care capacity are needed. This brief focuses on the opportunity to more fully tap the potential of nurse practitioners to increase access to primary care.

  • New Kaiser 50-State Survey Provides Data on States’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Eligibility Levels and Enrollment, Renewal and Cost-Sharing Policies as of January 2015

    News Release

    A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides a comprehensive look at where states stand with their Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligibility levels and enrollment, renewal and cost-sharing policies as of January 2015, one year into implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s major coverage provisions.

  • Web Briefing: Modern Era Medicaid and CHIP – Findings from a 50-State Survey of Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost-Sharing Policies

    Event Date:
    Event

    The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) hosts a web briefing to present findings from our 13th annual 50-state survey of Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment, renewal, and cost-sharing policies. The survey provides a profile of where states stand as of January 2015, one year into the implementation of the major Medicaid provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

  • Explaining Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center: The Supreme Court Considers Private Enforcement of the Medicaid Act

    Issue Brief

    On January 20, 2015, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, a case that raises the issue of whether Medicaid providers can challenge a state law in federal court on the basis that it violates the federal Medicaid Act and therefore is preempted by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This issue brief examines the major questions raised by the Armstrong case, explains the parties’ legal arguments, and considers potential effects of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

  • Proposed Medicaid Expansion in Utah

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides a summary of the proposal to expand Medicaid in Utah. This has not been officially submitted to CMS and needs state legislative approval before it could be implemented.

  • Medicaid Expansion in Red States

    From Drew Altman

    In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman explains that Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's decision on Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act is the latest sign of pragmatism slowly winning over ideology in red states.