About The Study: In this nationwide analysis, emergency Medicaid accounted for only a small fraction of total Medicaid expenditures. Although states with larger undocumented populations spent approximately 15 times more per capita, emergency Medicaid still constituted less than 1% of overall Medicaid spending even in states with large undocumented populations, posing a limited fiscal burden on Medicaid. These results suggest that cuts to emergency Medicaid will produce minimal overall cost savings and will disproportionately harm states with large undocumented populations.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Patricia Mae G. Santos, MD, MS, email patricia.mae.garcia.santos@emory.edu .
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(doi:10.1001/jama.2025.18709)
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