Medicaid - who gets what.

• Position: Medicaid beneficiaries and expenditures inn 1994

Medicaid consumed nearly 20 percent of total state expenditures in FY 1995, up from 10 percent in 1987. As costs have risen, so have concerns about containing them. But cost containment isn't the only issue in the debate. Medicaid now covers about 36 million Americans who would otherwise lack health insurance or other resources to pay for needed health care. Learning more about where the money goes may surprise many policymakers.

Most people know Medicaid as the country's funding source to provide health care to low-income Americans. But most don't realize that Medicaid also foots the bill for over half the nursing home costs in the United States and for about one-third of health services for people with disabilities.

* Although children make up half of Medicaid recipients, they account for only 16 percent of the services budget.

* In contrast, people in the "blind and disabled" category represent 16 percent of beneficiaries, but use 40 percent of the services budget.

Medicaid Recipients and Payments by Type of Service, 1994 PERCENT OF PERCENT OF SERVICE RECIPIENTS SERVICE COSTS General hospital 16.7% 28.6% Nursing facilities 4.7 29.3 ICF/MR 0.5 9.1 Physician services 69.2 7.9 Prescription drugs 69.8 9.7 EPSDT 18.4 1.1 Family planning 7.3 0.6 Source: Health Care Financing Administration The highest cost Medicaid recipients are people in institutional care:

* Less than 5 percent of recipients accounted for nearly 30 percent of service costs in 1994 as residents of nursing facilities.

* People in intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded (ICFs/MR) cost an average of $82,000 per person in 1994.

In contrast although nearly 70 percent of Medicaid recipients used physician services in 1994, they accounted for only about 8 percent of the services budget. EPSDT...