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.

The Essentials
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid and Provider Taxes

    This brief describe states’ current provider taxes and how the 2025 reconciliation law changed the federal rules governing them, including potential impacts across states.
  • 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: 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 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.
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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  • Medicaid’s Role in Louisiana

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides data on Medicaid's role in Louisiana. It describes how ending the enhanced match for Medicaid expansion and implementing a per capita cap or block grant would affect Louisiana.

  • Medicaid’s Role in Tennessee

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet provides data on Medicaid's role in Tennessee and describes how implementing a per capita cap or block grant would affect Tennessee.

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll – July 2017: What’s Next for Republican ACA Repeal and Replacement Plan Efforts?

    Feature

    As the U.S. Senate continues to debate their plan to repeal and replace the ACA, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll finds the public souring on the effort with a growing majority opposed to the plan and a large share that say the plan does not fulfill most of the promises President Trump has made about health care. Even among Republicans, the poll finds that about half would be “less likely” to support the Senate health plan if they heard it would increase premiums for most people who purchase their own insurance on the marketplace. In addition, a majority of the public would rather see Republicans in Congress work with Democrats to make improvements to the ACA but not repeal the law. The tracking poll also gauges the public's views on the proposed major reductions in federal funding for Medicaid as well as how these views are affected by counter-arguments.

  • State-by-State Estimates of Reductions in Federal Medicaid Funding Under Repeal of the ACA Medicaid Expansion

    Issue Brief

    Congressional debate around the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has recently included a proposal to repeal the ACA, including the provision allowing states to extend Medicaid to childless adults up to 138% FPL and providing enhanced federal funds for the Medicaid expansion. This brief provides estimates of changes in federal Medicaid funds and Medicaid coverage for adults covered through the ACA expansion if the expansion is eliminated starting in 2020. A repeal of the Medicaid expansion would have significant coverage and financing implications for the 31 states and the District of Columbia that have implemented the expansion.

  • Senate Health Bill Proposes Big Changes to Medicaid Beyond Repealing and Replacing the ACA

    News Release

    The Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) under consideration in Congress includes provisions that would fundamentally change Medicaid by phasing out extra federal funding for states’ Medicaid expansions and for the first time limiting federal spending on Medicaid through a per enrollee cap on financing or a block grant for certain adults.

  • Medicaid Family Planning and Maternity Care Services: The Current Landscape

    News Release

    As the Trump Administration and Congress weigh major changes to Medicaid and programs that fund reproductive health care, new analyses from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlight the current state of coverage and challenges for family planning, pregnancy, and perinatal services in the Medicaid program that provides coverage for millions of low-income women across the nation.

  • Medicaid’s Role in Behavioral Health

    Other Post

    This infographic highlights Medicaid's role in facilitating access to behavioral health treatment and the impact of potential reductions in federal Medicaid financing on behavioral health coverage and access to services.

  • Key Questions About Medicaid Block Grants

    News Release

    As policymakers in Washington discuss Affordable Care Act repeal and a possible block grant for Medicaid, a new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation lays out key questions to consider in restructuring federal financing of the nation’s health insurance program for low-income Americans.