{
  "id": 17337115,
  "title": "Medicaid’s Expanding Enrollment",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/19/medicaids-expanding-enrollment",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-19T20:45:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Conversable Economist",
    "slug": "conversable-economist",
    "url": "https://conversableeconomist.com/2026/10/19/medicaids-expanding-enrollment/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The Medicaid program, which spends nearly $1 trillion annually, accounts for nearly 20% of all US health care spending. Medicaid is jointly administered and funded at the federal and state levels, and eligibility includes a wide range of low-income populations such as children, pregnant women, the disabled and elderly, and working adults in low-wage jobs.\n\nThe program has experienced significant growth in enrollment, with about 10% of Americans in Medicaid in 1990, and now approaching 30%. This growth is primarily driven by the expansion of coverage to adults, particularly working adults, since 2014 under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion. Average spending per person in Medicaid, adjusted for inflation, has remained relatively stable since 1990.\n\nWhile proposals to hold down Medicaid costs often involve requiring recipients to work, the cost savings from this approach may be limited due to the relatively small proportion of Medicaid spending on non-disabled, non-elderly adults. A more effective strategy may be to examine how different states have designed their Medicaid programs, as there is significant variation in program design and limited evidence on what works.",
  "summary": "The Medicaid program spends close to $1 trillion annually, with about 65% of that coming fom the federal government and the rest from state governnments. This is almost, but not quite, one-in-five dollars of total US health care spending. Medicaid is not quite as big as Medicare, which is about $1.2 trillion per year, but … Continue reading Medicaid’s Expanding Enrollment The post Medicaid’s…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}