Medicaid

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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  • Medicaid 101: What You Need to Know

    Event Date:
    Event

    The Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Family Foundation present a briefing to discuss the basics of Medicaid and its role in the health care system.

  • Visualizing Health Policy: The Public’s Health Care Agenda for 2013

    Other Post

    This month’s Visualizing Health Policy infographic looks at the US public’s priorities for health care in 2013, including actions by state governments, Medicaid expansion, Medicare spending, and spending for specific types of public health activities. See the full-size infographic at The Journal of the American Medical Association The original public opinion poll is available here.

  • Case Study: Michigan’s Money Follows the Person Demonstration

    Report

    This case study looks at Michigan's Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration program, which has enabled the state to accelerate existing transition activities and increase access to home- and community-based services (HCBS) by providing enhanced federal funds for each MFP participant’s 365-day enrollment period.

  • Premiums and Cost-Sharing in Medicaid

    Issue Brief

    Medicaid, the nation’s public health insurance program for low-income people, now covers nearly 60 million Americans, including many working families, low-income elderly, and individuals with disabilities. Medicaid beneficiaries tend to be poorer and sicker than those enrolled in private insurance.

  • Premiums and Cost-Sharing in Medicaid: A Review of Research Findings

    Issue Brief

    Medicaid covers nearly 60 million Americans. Because the population covered by the program is low-income, federal law limits the extent to which states can charge premiums and cost-sharing amounts, particularly for pregnant women, children and adults with incomes below poverty.

  • Quick Take: Medicaid: 3 Key Issues to Watch in 2013

    Fact Sheet

    2013 will be a historic year for Medicaid with the implementation of major provisions to expand coverage and streamline enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) less than a year away, a surge in activity around care delivery reforms that seek to improve care and potentially reduce costs, and the unfolding of fiscal developments at…

  • The Single Streamlined Application Under the Affordable Care Act: Key Elements of the Proposed Application and Current Medicaid and CHIP Applications

    Report

    The Affordable Care Act (ACA) makes a number of changes to simplify the Medicaid enrollment process. As part of these changes, beginning in 2014 all states will be required to use a single, streamlined application provided by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services unless they receive approval to use an alternative application.