Medicaid Spending Overtakes Education

Kevin Freking:

States now spend more on health care for the poor than they do on elementary and secondary education, a policy group said Thursday in its annual review of efforts to deal with the growing problem of the uninsured.

The states spent 21.9 percent of their revenue on Medicaid in fiscal year 2004. Elementary and second education consumed about 21.5 percent of states' budgets. Higher education came in at a distant third, 10.5 percent.

Learn more at www.statecoverage.net. The report (pdf) is available here.

The previously discussed "Geezer Wars" are clearly underway. This is one of many reasons why I don't believe we'll see significant changes to school funding - beyond the current annual moderate increases. In Madison's case, school spending has increased from $200M in 1994/1995 to $329M in 05/06.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 20, 2006 7:32 AM
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