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What to Watch

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.

Work Requirements

Challenges with Implementing Work Requirements

Many states are anticipating a variety of implementation challenges, including the need for complex system changes, a compressed implementation timeline, and limited staff capacity.

What is the Medicaid Hardship Exception?

The number of Medicaid expansion enrollees who ultimately qualify for the high unemployment hardship exception will depend on how the exception is implemented and how unemployment rates changes.

Tracking Implementation of the 2025 Reconciliation Law: Medicaid Work Requirements

KFF’s interactive tracks key data and policies that will affect how states implement Medicaid work requirements, which are required under the 2025 budget reconciliation law starting in January 2027. The tracker includes state-level data on Medicaid enrollment and renewal outcomes as well as current state enrollment and renewal policies.

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.

The Essentials

  • 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.

  • Medicaid Financing: The Basics

    Medicaid is a major source of financing for states to provide health coverage and long-term services and supports for low-income residents. This brief examines key questions about Medicaid financing and how it works.

  • 5 Facts: Medicaid’s Share of National Health Spending

    This brief explores how Medicaid spending contributes to national health spending and how different service areas contribute to Medicaid costs.

  • 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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  • Data Note: What if Per Enrollee Medicaid Spending Growth Had Been Limited to CPI-M from 2001-2011?

    Issue Brief

    Congress is currently debating the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and also make substantial changes to the structure and financing of Medicaid. Among other provisions, the AHCA would use a per capita cap policy to cap federal funds to states for Medicaid. This data note examines what the implications of tying per enrollee growth to CPI-M would have been for the 2001-2011 period for federal spending nationally and state-by-state by major enrollment group. This analysis is meant to illustrate how actual spending compares to spending limits that would have been in place if growth rates had been limited to CPI-M, similar to the limits proposed by the AHCA.

  • Medicaid Restructuring Under the American Health Care Act and Implications for Behavioral Health Care in the US

    Issue Brief

    This brief outlines Medicaid’s role for people with behavioral health conditions and the implications of the American Health Care Act for these enrollees. It includes information on the potential impact of ending the enhanced federal financing for newly eligible adults, removing essential health benefits from state plan amendments, and converting federal Medicaid funding into a per capita cap.

  • Puerto Rico: Medicaid, Fiscal Issues and the Zika Challenge

    Fact Sheet

    Roughly one in two Puerto Ricans (49%) are enrolled in the island’s Medicaid program. This fact sheet provides an overview of the Medicaid program in Puerto Rico and emerging fiscal issues facing its health care system as Zika cases on the island continue to mount.

  • Data Note: Effect of State Decisions on State Risk Scores

    Issue Brief

    To gauge whether individual market risk pools are healthier in states that have expanded Medicaid and did not allow transitional plans, this data note compares average state risk scores using data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Summary Report on Risk Adjustment for the 2015 benefit year. The analysis finds that states that expanded Medicaid and did not allow transitional plans had lower average risk scores, suggesting the risk pools in those state’s markets are healthier than in non-expansion states and in states that allowed transitional plans.

  • State Variation in Medicaid Per Enrollee Spending for Seniors and People with Disabilities

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief explains the variation in Medicaid spending per enrollee for seniors, nonelderly adults with disabilities, and children with disabilities compared to other populations as well as the variation in per enrollee spending for these populations among states. It also provides a snapshot of state choices about optional eligibility pathways and services important to many seniors and people with disabilities.