Medicaid News and Research

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Medicaid is the United States health program for eligible individuals and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the states and federal government, and is managed by the states.

A California lawmaker leans into her medical training in fight for health safety net

State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson anticipates that California's sprawling Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, may need to be dialed back after Gov. Gavin Newsom releases his latest budget, which could reflect a multibillion-dollar deficit.

9 May 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Cutting Medicaid is hard — even for the GOP

After narrowly passing a budget resolution this spring foreshadowing major Medicaid cuts, Republicans in Congress are having trouble agreeing on specific ways to save billions of dollars from a pool of funding that pays for the program without cutting benefits on which millions of Americans rely.

8 May 2025

Sen. Ron Wyden seeks answers on RFK Jr.’s purge of FOIA staff

The Department of Health and Human Services' mass dismissals of workers who release government records "raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns," Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday.

8 May 2025

Seeking spending cuts, GOP lawmakers target a tax hospitals love to pay

On the eastern plains of Colorado, in a county of less than 6,000 people, Lincoln Health runs the only hospital within a 75-minute drive. The facility struggles financially, given its small size and the area's tiny population.

8 May 2025

Meet the Florida group chipping away at public benefits one state at a time

As an Arizona bill to block people from using government aid to buy soda headed to the governor's desk in April, the nation's top health official joined Arizona lawmakers in the state Capitol to celebrate its passage.

8 May 2025

NIH and CMS launch partnership to build real world health data platform

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced a landmark partnership to enable NIH to build a real-world data platform enabling advanced research across claims data, electronic medical records, and consumer wearables.

7 May 2025

Trump policies at odds with ‘make America healthy again’ push

In his March address to Congress, President Donald Trump honored a Texas boy diagnosed with brain cancer. Amid bipartisan applause, he vowed to drive down childhood cancer rates through his "Make America Healthy Again" initiative.

7 May 2025

NCCN hosts Oncology Policy Summit to bridge primary and cancer care

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network hosted an Oncology Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., today, focused on improving care coordination between primary care and oncology providers.

6 May 2025

Mental health diagnoses rise sharply among publicly insured children

In the first comprehensive investigation into the trends of mental health diagnoses among children with public health insurance, a new study reports the percentage of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorder diagnoses increased substantially in the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic.

6 May 2025

Retail pharmacies excluded from Medicare Part D networks at higher risk of closure

Retail pharmacies excluded from Medicare Part D networks maintained by drug benefits middlemen were much more likely to close over the past decade, according to new research from USC published in Health Affairs.

6 May 2025

HIV testing and outreach falter as Trump funding cuts sweep the South

Storm clouds hung low above a community center in Jackson, where pastor Andre Devine invited people inside for lunch. Hoagies with smoked turkey and ham drew the crowd, but several people lingered for free preventive health care: tests for HIV and other diseases, flu shots, and blood pressure and glucose monitoring.

6 May 2025

An Arm and a Leg: Why ‘The Pitt’ is our fave new drama

People who work in real-life emergency rooms have raved about how the new TV drama "The Pitt" accurately captures the complex dynamics of their workplaces and the medical details of their cases

5 May 2025

Alabama can’t prosecute groups helping patients get abortions elsewhere, judge rules

Reproductive rights groups in Alabama wasted no time resuming their work after a federal judge ruled in early April that the state's attorney general can't prosecute — or threaten to prosecute — people or organizations who help Alabama residents seek an abortion by traveling to another state.

5 May 2025

Medicaid unwinding may have put opioid recovery care at risk

The massive national effort to return the Medicaid enrollment process to its pre-pandemic rules starting in April 2023 may have disrupted the care of people receiving treatment for opioid addiction, a new University of Michigan study suggests.

3 May 2025

Medicaid enrollment drops linked to disrupted care for young people

Children and young adults with depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, asthma and epilepsy can get great relief from medications to control their symptoms, helping them stay in school or work and prepare for their futures.

3 May 2025

Medicaid rollbacks could deepen health inequities

A new analysis provides evidence that reductions in access to Medicaid could increase deaths and cause financial hardship to people currently covered under an expansion of Medicaid that was implemented under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

2 May 2025

Government watchdog expects Medicaid work requirement analysis by fall

The country's top nonpartisan government watchdog has confirmed it is examining the costs of running the nation's only active Medicaid work requirement program, as Republican state and federal lawmakers consider similar requirements.

2 May 2025

Covered California pushes for better health care as federal spending cuts loom

Faced with potential federal spending cuts that threaten health coverage and falling childhood vaccination rates, Monica Soni, the chief medical officer of Covered California, has a lot on her plate — and on her mind.

2 May 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': 100 days of health policy upheaval

Members of Congress are back in Washington this week, and Republicans are facing hard decisions on how to reduce Medicaid spending, even as new polling shows that would be unpopular among their voters.

1 May 2025

California’s primary care shortage persists despite ambitious moves to close gap

Sumana Reddy, a primary care physician, struggles on thin financial margins to run Acacia Family Medical Group, the small independent practice she founded 27 years ago in Salinas, a predominantly Latino city in an agricultural valley often called "the salad bowl of the world."

1 May 2025