Planning Ahead: Medicare & Medicaid
Originally published on LinkedIn June 29, 2025
I would normally be taking a summer break from my usual studies in Elder Law, but I could not pass up the opportunity to learn the latest on Disability Law from Prof. Imani Boykin at Stetson University College of Law before I complete the LLM program this fall.
And the timing could not be better! With the proposed FY26 Federal Budget introducing significant changes to programs and resources in several key areas people with disabilities rely on, understanding how these changes may impact beneficiaries across Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and Veterans programs, including healthcare, is key to ensuring future plans are realistic and sustainable.
To put things in historical perspective, I'm a big fan of the visualizations USAFacts provides to better understand how the Federal budget is distributed across agencies. What jumps out with the FY24 visual below, is just how large the overall budgets are for the (1) Social Security Administration, (2) Department of Health and Human Services (where the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are the bulk of expenditures), and (3) Veterans Affairs, relative to the rest of the departments and agencies in the Federal government.
If you want to double-click on these budget areas, there's also a great Sankey chart that lets you follow the money from the department or agency to specific programs.
The team at USAFacts also provides a high-level overview of the FY26 proposed budget changes, where HHS sees the most significant reduction, while SSA remains relatively flat, and the VA budget sees a modest increase. How this impacts specific programs, esp. for people with dual eligibility across Medicare and Medicaid, could be significant.
I've previously written about some of the shortfall projections related to Social Security, but looking at the FY26 CMS budget estimates, it is still remarkable to see almost half the US population is impacted by programs related to Medicare and Medicaid, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Needless to say, many people involved in Elder Law practice areas, including disability and special needs planning, are keeping a close eye on how some of these changes may impact beneficiaries given the current trajectory of healthcare costs overall, in addition to other economic conditions that could exacerbate the loss of benefits to these vulnerable populations.
I'm looking forward to learning more from Prof. Boykin and a stellar group of classmates this summer as we process the FY26 Federal budget changes to some of these key programs.
Reference
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), https://www.cms.gov/
CMS, "FY26 Justification of Estimates for Appropriations Committees," at https://www.cms.gov/files/document/fy2026-cms-congressional-justification-estimates-appropriations-committees.pdf
Medicaid, https://www.medicaid.gov/
Medicare, https://www.medicare.gov/
Mohamed, Maiss, Alice Burns, and Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek. "Medicaid Changes in House and Senate Reconciliation Bills Would Increase Costs for 1.3 Million Low-Income Medicare Beneficiaries," Jun. 17, 2025, at https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/medicaid-changes-in-house-reconciliation-bill-would-increase-costs-for-1-3-million-low-income-medicare-beneficiaries/
National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, "Questions & Answers When Looking for an Elder and Special Needs Law Attorney," at https://naela.org/Web/Resources_Tab/Consumer_Resources/Consumer_Resources/QandAWhenHiringAnAttorney.aspx
"President’s FY 2026 Discretionary Budget Request." May 2, 2025, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/the-presidents-fy-2026-discretionary-budget-request/
Social Security Administration, https://www.ssa.gov/
US Dept. of Health & Human Services, https://www.hhs.gov/
US Dept. of Veterans Affairs, https://www.va.gov/
USAFacts, "How is the federal budget distributed across agencies?" at https://usafacts.org/visualizations/agency-spending/
USAFacts, "This chart tells you everything you want to know about government spending," Feb. 6, 2025, at https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-everything-you-want-to-know-about-government-spending/
USAFacts, "What's in Trump’s 2026 budget proposal?" Jun. 26, 2025, at https://usafacts.org/articles/whats-in-trumps-2026-proposed-budget/
Zakhari, Nivine. "Planning Ahead: Social Security," May 27, 2024, at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/planning-ahead-social-security-nivine-k-zakhari-l4dde/