The futures file · every date somebody in power set, and what was standing there when it arrived

31 December 2026Set

Medicaid work requirements begin

The work requirements written into the July 2025 law begin today, on the date the statute set. The Congressional Research Service, citing the budget office, puts the law's Medicaid provisions at $989.7 billion in reduced federal outlays through 2034, and 7.5 million more people uninsured by then.

The rural health fund created to soften it is $50 billion over five years, and the Chartis Center counts 417 rural hospitals already vulnerable to closure. About twenty dollars out for every dollar in, and the paperwork starts on New Year's Eve.

This page is a row in the futures file. It changes when the date does: set, then kept, moved or missed. A date that came due with nobody to settle it says so, in public, until somebody settles it. The whole timeline runs at the foot of the front page.