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.

The Essentials
  • 5 Facts: Medicaid and Provider Taxes

    This brief describe states’ current provider taxes and how the 2025 reconciliation law changed the federal rules governing them, including potential impacts across states.
  • 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: 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.
  • 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.
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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  • New Analysis Illustrates Potential Impact of Medicaid Work Requirements on Coverage if Implemented Nationally as Called for by House Budget Committee and Senate Legislation

    News Release

    As a number of states pursue Medicaid waivers to require certain beneficiaries to work in order to receive benefits, the House Budget Committee passed a budget resolution this month calling for the enactment of Medicaid work requirements in all states, a goal also advanced in proposed legislation in the Senate by Sen.

  • Implications of a Medicaid Work Requirement: National Estimates of Potential Coverage Losses

    Issue Brief

    A number of states have received approval for, have applied for, or are considering Medicaid waiver proposals that would impose work requirements as a condition of eligibility, and some policymakers are calling for a federal requirement that all states implement work requirements in Medicaid. This analysis provides illustrative scenarios of potential nationwide reductions in Medicaid coverage if all states implemented work requirements similar to those currently proposed. The scenarios assume low and high disenrollment rates tied to compliance with the work requirements and related problems with reporting, based on disenrollment rates reported in existing studies of the effect of Medicaid reporting requirements and state estimates of enrollment under proposed waivers.

  • KFF/EHF Poll: Texans’ Top State Health Priorities Include Lowering Out-of-Pocket Costs and Reducing Maternal Mortality

    News Release

    Most Texans Don’t Know their State has the Nation’s Highest Uninsured Rate Texans’ top health care priorities for the state revolve around making health care and prescription drugs more affordable, reducing maternal mortality and increasing access to health insurance coverage, finds a new statewide Kaiser Family Foundation/Episcopal Health Foundation survey on Texas health policy issues.

  • Texas Residents’ Views on State and National Health Policy Priorities

    Report

    As part of the new Kaiser Family Foundation/Episcopal Health Foundation 2018 Texas Health Policy Survey, this brief explores Texans’ views on health policy priorities at both the state and national level. It examines how Texas residents view state spending on health care and how they rank initiatives such as lowering health care costs, reducing maternal mortality, and funding for mental health care. It also explores Texans’ views on the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, including personal connections to the Medicaid program and support for Medicaid expansion.

  • 33 States and DC Have Adopted Medicaid Expansion, as of May 2018

    Feature

    Source Current status for each state is based on KFF tracking and analysis of state executive activity. Also see the related State Health Facts page “Status of State Action on the Medicaid Expansion Decision” for additional details.

  • Implications of the ACA Medicaid Expansion: A Look at the Data and Evidence

    Issue Brief

    More than four years after the implementation of the Medicaid expansion included in the Affordable Care Act, debate and controversy around the implications of the expansion continue. Despite a large body of research that shows that the Medicaid expansion results in gains in coverage, improvements in access and financial security, and economic benefits for states and providers, some argue that the Medicaid expansion has broadened the program beyond its original intent diverting spending from the “truly needy”, offers poor quality and limited access to providers, and has increased state costs. New proposals allow states to implement policies never approved before including conditioning Medicaid eligibility on work or community engagement. New complex requirements run counter to the post-ACA movement of Medicaid integration with other health programs and streamlined enrollment processes. This brief examines evidence of the effects of the Medicaid expansion and some changes being implemented through waivers. Many of the findings on the effects of expansion cited in this brief are drawn from the 202 studies included in our comprehensive literature review that includes additional citations on coverage, access, and economic effects of the Medicaid expansion.