Mandatory Medicaid benefits include hospital, medical, laboratory, X-ray and home health care services. Optional benefits include prescription drugs and case management. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that helps cover the medical costs of certain low-income individuals, families and children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Medicaid also helps cover the medical costs of other adults. Medicaid offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, such as personal care and nursing home care services.
The rules about who is eligible for Medicaid are different in each state. Medicaid is the primary program that provides comprehensive health coverage and long-term care to 83 million low-income people in the United States. Medicaid accounts for one-fifth of health care spending, more than half of long-term care spending, and a large portion of state budgets. Medicaid is jointly funded by the states and the federal government, but is administered by the states within broad federal rules.
Because states have a degree of flexibility in determining what populations and services to cover, how to provide care and how much to reimburse providers, there is significant variation between states in terms of program expenses and the proportion of state residents covered by the program. The percentage tends to be higher in the 41 states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which includes 21 states that voted for Trump and 20 that voted for Harris. Medicaid pays Medicare premiums and often provides comprehensive coverage for services not covered by Medicare (such as most long-term care) to nearly 1 in 5 Medicare beneficiaries (13 million).
