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.

2025-2026 Medicaid Budget Survey

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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  • Community Health Centers: Growing Importance in a Changing Health Care System

    Issue Brief

    Community health centers provide essential access to comprehensive primary care in underserved communities. This issue brief describes health centers and their patients in 2016 and examines changes in access to care and utilization of services by health center patients following implementation of the ACA coverage expansions in 2014.

  • Digging Into the Data: What Can We Learn from the State Evaluation of Healthy Indiana (HIP 2.0) Premiums

    Issue Brief

    Indiana initially implemented the ACA’s Medicaid expansion through a Section 1115 waiver in February 2015. Indiana’s waiver included important changes from federal law regarding enrollment and premiums. The initial waiver expired, and Indiana received approval for a waiver extension in February, 2018 which continues most components of HIP 2.0 and adds some new provisions related to enrollment and premiums. This brief looks at available data from the state’s evaluation of premiums prepared by The Lewin Group (as well as other reporting to CMS) to highlight what is known about the impact of these policies to date. We review these data to identify potential implications for changes in the recent Indiana renewal and for other states considering similar provisions.

  • Medicaid Managed Care Plans and Access to Care: Results from the Kaiser Family Foundation 2017 Survey of Medicaid Managed Care Plans

    Report

    Managed care organizations (MCOs) cover nearly two-thirds of all Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide, making managed care the nation’s dominant delivery system for Medicaid enrollees. As the entities responsible for providing comprehensive Medicaid benefits to enrollees by contracting with providers, managed care plans play a critical role in shaping access to care for Medicaid enrollees. Many plan actions are dictated by state policy or contracting requirements; however, plans also have some flexibility to design payment and delivery systems and structure enrollees’ experiences using their coverage. To understand how Medicaid managed care plans approach access to care and the challenges they face in ensuring such access, the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a survey of plans in 2017.

  • Implications of Emerging Waivers on Streamlined Medicaid Enrollment and Renewal Processes

    Fact Sheet

    The Affordable Care Act (ACA) significantly modernized and streamlined Medicaid enrollment and renewal processes across all states. Through major investments of time, money, and staff, most states have implemented modernized systems that transformed lengthy, paperwork driven enrollment and renewal procedures to a simplified, technology-driven experience that minimizes burdens on individuals and states. Recently approved and proposed waivers and other proposed policies include new eligibility and enrollment requirements and restrictions that run counter to the ACA’s streamlined processes (Figure 1). This fact sheet provides an overview of how enrollment and renewal processes changed under the ACA and the implications of emerging waivers and other proposed changes on streamlined enrollment and renewal.

  • Poll: Public Mixed on Whether Medicaid Work Requirements Are More to Cut Spending or to Lift People Up; Most Do Not Support Lifetime Limits on Benefits

    News Release

    Ahead of the Midterms, Voters across Parties See Costs as their Top Health Care Concern At a time when the Trump Administration is encouraging state efforts to revamp their Medicaid programs through waivers, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll finds the public splits on whether the reason behind proposals to impose work requirements on…

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll – February 2018: Health Care and the 2018 Midterms, Attitudes Towards Proposed Changes to Medicaid

    Feature

    At a time when some states are considering changes to their Medicaid programs, the February Kaiser Health Tracking Poll measures Americans’ attitudes toward Medicaid and examines views on work requirements and lifetime limits on benefits. The poll also continues to find the public leaning favorably towards the ACA, with this month marking the highest level of favorability since 2010. When asked to say in their own words what health care issue they most want 2018 midterm candidates to discuss, voters mention health care costs as their top concern.

  • How Do Medicaid/CHIP Children with Special Health Care Needs Differ from Those with Private Insurance?

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief compares the demographics, health status, access to care, and coverage affordability of Medicaid/CHIP children with special health care needs to those with private insurance and those who are uninsured. Medicaid plays a key role for children with special health care needs by making coverage affordable and covering services that private coverage typically does not. Consequently, legislative proposals that would cap and reduce federal Medicaid funding may pose a particular risk to children with special health care needs and their providers. A companion brief describes Medicaid’s role for children with special health care needs.

  • Medicaid’s Role for Children with Special Health Care Needs: A Look at Eligibility, Services, and Spending

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief describes the role that Medicaid plays for children with special health care needs. It explains common eligibility pathways, covered services, and program spending for these children. The Appendix includes 50-state data on the number of children with special health care needs covered by Medicaid/CHIP. A companion brief compares key characteristics of Medicaid/CHIP children with special health care needs to those covered by private insurance.