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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  • Money Follows the Person: An Early Implementation Snapshot

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief examines the early successes and challenges of the Money Follows the Person Demonstration (MFP), a Medicaid initiative enacted into law in 2006 that gives states enhanced federal support to balance their Medicaid long-term care programs by providing more services in the community and fewer in institutional settings.

  • Health Reform Roundtables: Charting A Course Forward

    Report

    Health Reform Roundtables: Charting A Course Forward is a series of discussions among federal officials, state officials and outside experts that provides an opportunity to share insights and explore key issues related to implementing a significant expansion of the Medicaid program as part of the new health reform law that will require most

  • Medicaid Financing Issues: Provider Taxes

    Fact Sheet

    Current law allows states to use revenue from provider taxes to help fund the state share of spending on Medicaid, a program that is jointly financed by the states and the federal government. Almost all states have at least one provider tax in place.

  • Understanding The Medicaid And CHIP Maintenance of Eligibility Requirements

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet examines the provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that require states to maintain eligibility and enrollment standards for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. These maintenance of eligibility (MOE) provisions were designed to keep Medicaid and CHIP coverage stable until coverage expands under the health reform law.

  • Update: State Budgets in Recession and Recovery

    Issue Brief

    State revenues have been rebounding after experiencing a severe decline caused by the Great Recession that ran from December 2007 through June 2009. Nevertheless, tax collections remain below their 2008 peak level and state and local governments continue to shed jobs.