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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  • The Budget: What Would You Cut?

    Perspective

    As President Obama and Congress begin to hash out the 2012 budget, it is a good time to revisit results from our January 2011 survey showing that in spite of the fact that most Americans report being very concerned about the budget deficit, there is little public support for major reductions across a number of…

  • Medicaid Spending Growth and the Great Recession, 2007-2009

    Fact Sheet

    This fact sheet examines how the recent recession drove up Medicaid enrollment as millions of Americans lost jobs and income, and how that increase in enrollment has been the primary cause of the increase in overall Medicaid spending. Fact Sheet (.

  • Money Follows the Person: A 2010 Snapshot

    Issue Brief

    Enacted into law in 2006 as part of the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), the Money Follows the Person demonstration provides states with enhanced federal matching funds for twelve months for each Medicaid beneficiary transitioned from an institutional setting to a community-based setting. In July 2010, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) surveyed states about the current status of their MFP program including trends in enrollment, services and per capita spending.

  • New Resources & Briefing Examine Medicaid Long-Term Services and Supports

    Event Date:
    Event

    The following resources by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) examine the latest data findings regarding Medicaid’s long-term services and supports for seniors and people with disabilities. The materials were released at a public briefing in the Foundation’s Washington, D.C.

  • Case Study: Ohio’s Money Follows the Person Demonstration (HOME Choice)

    Issue Brief

    This case study of Ohio's Money Follows the Person demonstration, known as HOME Choice, describes key features of the program and highlights early program experiences. Ohio was one of 17 states to receive federal funding for the Money Follows the Person (MFP) rebalancing demonstration in January 2007.

  • Money Follows the Person Transitions Individuals from Nursing Homes to the Community

    Issue Brief

    This brief presents short profiles of four Ohio residents who have benefited from the state's Money Follows the Person demonstration program, known as HOME Choice. It was released along with several other resources on Medicaid long-term services and supports at a Feb. 7, 2011 briefing at the Foundation's Washington, D.C., offices. Profiles (.