Home Medicaid Topics

Medicaid

new and noteworthy

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.

Medicaid Watch

Featuring policy research, polling and news about how Medicaid is changing, and the impact of those changes due to the tax and spending cuts law

Medicaid and work

Tracking Medicaid Work Requirements:
Data and Policies

To implement Medicaid work requirements, states will need to make important policy and operational decisions, implement needed system upgrades or changes, develop new outreach and education strategies, and hire and train staff, all within a relatively short timeframe. The information tracked here can serve as a resource to understand Medicaid work requirements and state options, gauge readiness, and track implementation of the requirements.

understanding medicaid

5 Facts: Provider Taxes

All states except Alaska cover some state Medicaid costs with taxes on health care providers. This brief uses data from KFF’s 2024-2025 survey of Medicaid directors to describe current practices and the federal rules governing them.

5 Facts: Medicaid and Hospitals

Absorbing reductions in Medicaid spending could be challenging for hospitals, particularly for those that are financially vulnerable. This brief provides data on the reach of Medicaid across hospitals, patients, and charity care.

5 Facts: Medicaid and Immigrants

Confusion persists about immigrants’ eligibility for federal programs. This brief helps readers understand how current Medicaid policy affects immigrants as well as the potential impacts of policy changes under the Trump administration.

5 Facts: Medicaid and Rural Areas

Approximately 66 million people live in rural areas – about 20% of the U.S. population. Nearly 1 in 4 of them have Medicaid, a higher share than in urban areas (24% vs 21%).

5 Facts: Nursing Facilities

The substantial Medicaid savings in the reconciliation bill that has been passed by the House could have major implications for nearly 15,000 federally certified nursing facilities and the 1.2 million people living in them.

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.

Latest News

More KFF Health News

Subscribe to KFF Emails

Choose which emails are best for you.
Sign up here

View the Latest: Medicaid

Filter

List Grid

2,501 - 2,510 of 2,685 Results

  • Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Access to Health Insurance and Health Care

    Fact Sheet

    Racial and ethnic groups in the United States continue to experience major differences in health status compared to the majority white population. Although many factors affect health status, the lack of health insurance and other barriers to obtaining health services markedly diminish minorities' use of both preventive services and medical treatments.

  • New Numbers on Enrollment of Uninsured Children

    Report

    This report reveals that the total number of children enrolled in state CHIP programs had grown to 1.8 million by December 1999, a 112% increase from December 1998. Although enrollment doubled in 20 states during that year, growth did begin to moderate in several states that had implemented their programs relatively earlier on.

  • Making Medicaid Managed Care Work: An Action Plan for People Living With HIV

    Report

    This is an update of an earlier report also prepared by The National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), with support from the Foundation. That report was the product of a 1996 meeting of people with HIV, their advocates, and researchers designed to provide information about Medicaid managed care for people with HIV.

  • Building Strong Medicaid Managed Care Programs: A Guide To Help Consumer Advocates Participate in Strengthening HIV/AIDS Provisions in Managed Care

    Report

    This new report, prepared by NAPWA with support of the Foundation, grew out of a key recommendation in the Making Medicaid Managed Care Work report, and is designed to provide people with HIV and their advocates with the tools for understanding Medicaid managed care contracts and for working with states to make them responsive to…

  • Table

    Other Post

    SUMMARY OF CALIFORNIA VERSUS THE U KEY HEALTH CARE FACTS IN CALIFORNIA AND THE U.S. California U.S. Percentage uninsured (non-elderly) (1998) 24.4% 18.3% Percentage of children uninsured (1998) 20.8% 15.5% Percentage of non-elderly enrolled in Medicaid: 1998 11.1% 8.4% 1994 14.3% 10.

  • Medicaid Managed Care for Persons with Disabilities: A Closer Look

    Report

    This report, Medicaid Managed Care for Persons with Disabilities: A Closer Look, presents an overview of the findings and summarizes the results of the case studies of Medicaid managed care programs that enroll persons with disabilities in four states: Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, and New Mexico.

  • NewsHour/Kaiser Survey Underscores Difficulties Faced by Those Without Health Insurance

    Report

    The National Survey on the Uninsured from The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and the Kaiser Family Foundation is this year's first nationwide survey on Americans' attitudes about the growing uninsured population and the difficulties uninsured people face getting medical care. The survey also assesses public attitudes on options to address the problem.