Kaiser Examines Medicaid and Managed Care

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Unisured issued a policy brief Monday, February 8th which provides an overview of the Medicaid program’s increasing reliance on managed care to deliver services. Medicaid provides health and long-term care coverage to nearly 60 million low-income individuals, or roughly 1 in 5 Americans. About 70 percent of Medicaid enrollees receive some or all of their services through managed care. Adopting managed care also gives states more cost predictability and control over their Medicaid programs, and contracts with managed care plans offer states a mechanism, through quality measurement and improvement requirements, for holding plans accountable for the quality of care they provide to Medicaid enrollees.