The State Health Care Spending Project, a collaboration between The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examined seven major areas of state health care spending—Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, substance abuse treatment, mental health services, prison health care, active state government employee health insurance, and retired state government employee health insurance. The project provided a comprehensive examination of each of these health programs that states fund. The programs vary by state in many ways, so the research highlighted those variations and some of the principal factors driving them. The project concurrently released state-by-state data on 20 key health indicators to complement the programmatic spending analysis. To see new research from Pew on prison health care spending, please visit State and Local Correctional Health Care Spending.

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State and Local Correctional Health Care

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Effectively administering health care programs is a critical element of sound fiscal management for state and local governments. As health care and corrections have emerged in recent years as fiscal pressure points, so too has the intersection of these two spheres—health care for inmates. The manner in which states and localities manage prison and jail health care services affects taxpayers’ total corrections bill, as well as inmates’ well-being, and the public’s health and safety. Pew conducts research on state and local correctional health care spending and performance to help policymakers access the information they need to make data-driven policy decisions.

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State Health Care Spending Project Reports

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State Health Care Spending Project Reports

These reports provide 50-state analysis of states’ spending on health care.

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