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.

Subscribe to KFF Emails

Choose which emails are best for you.
Sign up here

Filter

1,671 - 1,680 of 2,682 Results

  • From Crunch to Crisis: State Budgets, Medicaid and the Economy

    Event Date:
    Event

    Medicaid programs are feeling the strain as enrollment grows while state revenues come in lower than projected. How are Medicaid directors coping? How is the recession affecting low-income individuals and families? This briefing, cosponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, addressed these and related questions.

  • Medicaid and CHIP Health Reform Implementation Timeline

    Issue Brief

    This timeline highlights the implementation dates for provisions in the new health reform law that are related to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. While major expansions of Medicaid are set to occur in 2014, many other key provisions in the health reform law become effective between 2010 and 2014. Timeline (.

  • Mental Health Financing in the United States: A Primer

    Report

    This primer provides an overview of behavioral health care, reviews the sources of financing for such care, assesses the interaction between different payers, and highlights recent policy debates in mental health.

  • Inside Deficit Reduction: What It Means For Medicaid

    Event Date:
    Event

    This briefing, co-sponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The SCAN Foundation, featured panelists discussing which deficit-reduction proposals affecting Medicaid might receive serious consideration by the congressional "super committee," as well as what kind of impact such changes would have on Medicaid enrollees, providers and…

  • Georgia’s Money Follows the Person Program: Helping People Move Back Home

    Issue Brief

    This brief profiles several Georgia residents who have participated in the state's Money Follows the Person demonstration program, which helps transition people from institutional long-term care back into their homes or the community. It is part of a larger package of resources examining the Money Follows the Person program. Profiles (.

  • Quick Take: Geographic Variation in Dual Eligible Enrollment

    Fact Sheet

    Over 9 million elderly Americans and younger persons with disabilities are jointly enrolled in the Medicaid and Medicare programs.  These “dual eligibles” receive coverage for most medical services from Medicare, and they also receive Medicaid assistance for Medicare premiums and cost-sharing and coverage of benefits not offered under Medicare (such as long-term care).

  • Native Americans and Medicaid: Coverage and Financing Issues

    Other Post

    Native Americans and Medicaid:Coverage and Financing Issues Prepared by Andy Schneider and JoAnn Martinez, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for The Kaiser Commission on the Future of Medicaid December 1997 Table 1: Medicaid Eligibility Thresholds Pregnant Women, Infants and Children (Effective October 1997) Other Eligibility Categories State Pregnant Women and Infants Children Under…

  • Medicaid Eligibility for Families and Children

    Report

    This paper provides an overview of Medicaid eligibility policy and examines two groups of Americans in particular - low-income children and nondisabled adults under 65 - and summarizes the statutory and regulatory pathways to Medicaid eligibility available to them as individuals.