The Cost Benefits of Medicaid

With health-care costs increasing due to eligibility expansion from population, a national recession and inflation, Medicaid costs have increased as of September 2010. The program has tried to control mounting expenses while improving the quality of service, moving toward managed care in its efforts and providing a federal safety net for severe and costly health-care needs. National health-care reform will increase costs to $20.4 billion over 10 years in the long-term and $402.8 billion involving economic health-care activity in the short term, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

AIDS Cost Benefits

• Medicaid is the largest single payer toward the care of persons living with AIDS and children who have AIDS, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. With direct medical care of $3.3 billion, Medicaid financial services account for 53 percent of people living with AIDS and 90 percent of AIDS-infected children.

Child and Maternal Care

• Medicaid benefits 60 percent of poor children and their mothers, according to the agency. With children representing half the recipients, Medicaid pays close to a third for United States births. Subsidized acute care provides poor mothers and children with health opportunities without paying out-of pocket expenses for the entire cost.

Elderly Benefits

• With 60 percent of the Medicaid program going toward spending for the elderly, disabled and blind, Medicaid pays close to half of all nursing home care in the United States. $62.6 billion covers a quarter of these Medicaid recipients with these high expenses funding long-term care services, the agency reports.