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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.

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  • Key State Policy Choices About Medical Frailty Determinations for Medicaid Expansion Adults

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief answers 3 key questions and provides new data about state medical frailty determinations, which are assuming greater importance as more states adopt restrictive Section 1115 waivers that exempt medically frail enrollees from policies such as work requirements and premiums. The findings are excerpted from our 50-state survey on Medicaid financial eligibility for seniors and people with disabilities.

  • How Connecting Justice-Involved Individuals to Medicaid Can Help Address the Opioid Epidemic

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief identifies key lessons learned from how four states (Missouri, Ohio, New Mexico, Rhode Island) are connecting people leaving the criminal justice system to Medicaid coverage and services, with a focus on medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and supports for people with opioid use disorder. It builds on previous briefs that assessed state efforts to connect people involved in the justice system to Medicaid coverage. It is based on interviews conducted in late 2018 and early 2019 with state Medicaid, behavioral health, and corrections officials in the four states and in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, as well as interviews with managed care organizations, providers, and advocates in those states and published information on the states’ experiences.

  • Medicaid Financial Eligibility for Seniors and People with Disabilities: Findings from a 50-State Survey

    Issue Brief

    This brief presents the latest information on Medicaid financial eligibility criteria and state adoption of major coverage pathways related to old age and disability. The findings are based on a survey of the 50 states and the District of Columbia that asked questions related to financial eligibility and policy choices related to mandatory and optional eligibility pathways. The brief also analyzes the likelihood of adopting optional pathways given a state’s ACA expansion status.

  • Abismo en el financiamiento de Medicaid: Implicaciones para los sistemas de atención de salud de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes de los EE.UU.

    Issue Brief

    Este resumen ofrece una descripción general del estado de los sistemas de atención médica y los programas de Medicaid en Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes de los EE.UU. (USVI) aproximadamente un año y medio después que los huracanes Irma y María azotaran las islas, en septiembre de 2017. Después de las tormentas, los programas de Medicaid de los territorios han servido como recursos importantes para atender las necesidades de atención médica de los residentes, pero han operado bajo desafíos financieros de larga data. Este resumen se enfoca en esos desafíos e incluye el análisis de KFF de las consecuencias para las finanzas de los programas de Medicaid de los territorios, ya que la mayoría de los fondos federales de Medicaid provistos a través de la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (ACA), y la asistencia para desastres, expirarán a fines de septiembre de 2019. Los otros territorios de los EE.UU. (Samoa Americana, el Commonwealth de las Islas Marianas del Norte y Guam) también enfrentan retos relacionados con el vencimiento programado de los fondos de ACA. Este resumen se basa en trabajos anteriores y en informes públicos recientes, y en entrevistas con funcionarios de los territorios en los lugares afectados, con proveedores, con responsables de planes de salud de Puerto Rico y beneficiarios.

  • 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.

  • Disability and Technical Issues Were Key Barriers to Meeting Arkansas’ Medicaid Work and Reporting Requirements in 2018

    Issue Brief

    This issue brief analyzes the impact of the four measures intended to safeguard coverage for people with disabilities and others who should not have been subject to the work and reporting requirements. It draws on data newly available from Arkansas’ 2018 annual waiver report to CMS and monthly data released by the state while the requirements were in effect. The data reveal that few people used these safeguard measures relative to the number of people who lost coverage due to the new requirements. Among those who accessed the safeguards, the vast majority did so due to disability/other health issues or technical issues such as those related to reporting.