The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life.
When it comes to health care spending, the bill just keeps getting bigger. Health care’s growing claim on state budgets is competing with other important priorities, including education, public safety, and transportation.
Medicaid is now the top budget item for states, comprising more than 22 percent of their total spending in fiscal year 2010, and that figure is projected to rise in coming years. Many states will spend more money on Medicaid as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) begins to expand in 2014—and that amount will grow in 2019, when federal funds begin to taper. The implementation of ACA has heightened the focus on Medicaid. But states have many other health care costs—such as public sector employee and retiree benefits, public health, state-run hospitals, and corrections—that account for a significant share of their overall health care spending. Containing all of these costs in ways that deliver better outcomes will be critical to states’ fiscal health now and in the future.
The State Health Care Spending Project conducts original research, convenes policy makers, and works with experts in the field to help states understand how much they spend on health care overall, how that amount has changed over time, what is driving it higher, and which policy approaches are containing costs while improving health outcomes.
The State Health Care Spending Project is a joint initiative of the Pew Center on the States and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Jan 31, 2013 - The State Health Care Spending Project created an online database containing hundreds of practices found to be promising by state and federal Medicaid agencies.
Read More
Jan 30, 2013 - Sue Urahn, executive vice president, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and Valerie Chang, associate director for policy, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, explain why states are seeking these answers and how this new project will find and share them.
Jan 28, 2013 - While total U.S. health care spending grew slowly in 2011, rising about four percent, the story for state and local governments was dramatically different.
Jan 15, 2013 - Sixty-one key cities across America have emerged from the Great Recession with a gap of more than $217 billion between what they had promised their workers in pensions and retiree health care and what they had saved to pay that bill, according to a report released today by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Read: Summary View: Full Report (Adobe PDF)
Feb 18, 2010 - A new report from the Pew Center on the States shows why states must take strong action now to pay for employees’ retirement benefits or taxpayers will suffer later.
Stay updated with Pew News Now! We invite you to sign up to receive our weekly e-mail newsletter.