Medicaid

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.

Medicaid Budget Survey

Medicaid Home Care

Using data from the 23rd KFF survey of officials administering Medicaid home care programs, 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.

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 data come from KFF’s 23rd survey on Medicaid home care programs in all 50 states and DC.

KFF regularly surveys states about their Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) programs and their eligibility policies for people who are eligible for Medicaid on the basis of having a disability or being 65 and older.

states-are-most-likely-to-offer-home-care-to-eligible-people-with-intellectual-developmental-disabilities_FI_v2_7f7f71.png

This issue brief provides an overview of what Medicaid home care (also known as “home- and community-based services” or HCBS) is, who is covered, and what services were available in 2024.

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

2,381 - 2,390 of 2,668 Results

  • Cover the Uninsured Week 2006 – Kaiser Family Foundation Resources

    Fact Sheet

    May 1-7, 2006, is Cover the Uninsured Week, organized by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and several partner organizations. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a wide range of resources on the topics of health coverage and the nation's uninsured population to assist you in your work related to these issues.

  • A Decade of SCHIP: Experience and Issues for Reauthorization

    Issue Brief

    A Decade of SCHIP: Experience and Issues for Reauthorization As the SCHIP program is due for reauthorization in 2007, this brief explores some lessons learned and highlights key policy issues for the upcoming debate. Issue Brief (.

  • Why Does the Medicaid Debate Matter? National Data and Voices of People with Medicaid Highlight Medicaid’s Role

    Fact Sheet

    President Trump and other GOP leaders have called for far-reaching changes to Medicaid, including caps and reductions in federal funding for the program. This snapshot provides data on the role Medicaid plays for different population groups as well as perspectives from individuals with coverage through the program. Medicaid, the nation’s public health insurance program for low-income children, adults, seniors, and people with disabilities, covers 1 in 5 Americans, including many with complex and costly needs for medical care and long-term services. Most people covered by Medicaid would be uninsured or underinsured without it. The AHCA would fundamentally change Medicaid in the most significant restructuring of the program since 1965.

  • Strategies to Reduce Medicaid Spending: Findings from a Literature Review

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief considers the feasibility of realizing substantial Medicaid cost savings through strategies aimed at improving delivery system and administrative efficiency. We review the literature about the potential for Medicaid cost savings from four strategies related to acute care services: (1) premiums, cost-sharing, and enrollee wellness incentives, (2) complex care management, (3) patient-centered medical homes, and (4) alternative payment models, and another four strategies related to long-term services and supports: (5) tightening financial eligibility rules for long-term care services, (6) promoting private long-term care insurance, (7) expanding home and community-based services (HCBS), and (8) increasing use of managed long-term services and supports.

  • No Easy Choices: 5 Options to Respond to Per Capita Caps

    Issue Brief

    Under a per capita cap, per enrollee spending would be capped, but the total amount of federal dollars to states could vary with enrollment changes and states would not be able to impose enrollment caps. Faced with restrictions in federal financing, states would have to make hard choices. This brief outlines the key measures states could use to manage their budgets and the associated challenges under a per capita cap: raise taxes or make other cuts, reduce benefits, limit coverage of high cost enrollees, reduce rates or implement delivery system reforms, and promote personal responsibility. Each option has challenges that are identified in the brief.

  • Medicaid’s Role in Nursing Home Care

    Other

    This infographic highlights Medicaid’s role for nursing home care. It includes information about the nation's growing long term care need and the role Medicaid plays as the primary payer for nursing home care. It also discusses the potential impact of proposals to limit federal Medicaid financing.

  • The Great Medicaid Divide

    From Drew Altman

    In his Axios column, Drew Altman examines how the core views Republicans have about Medicaid differ from those of Democrats and Independents, and how those views drive the policy changes they are proposing for the program.