The Number of State and Federal Prisoners Age 55 and Older Increased by 234%

The State Health Care Spending Project, a collaboration between The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is examining 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 will provide a comprehensive examination of each of these health programs that states fund. The programs vary by state in many ways, so the research will highlight those variations and some of the principal factors driving them. The project is concurrently releasing state-by-state data on 20 key health indicators to complement the programmatic spending analysis.