States cutting Medicaid benefits as they stagger under economic downturn

Kaiser Health News writer Phil Galewitz reports on a new study that finds Medicaid programs across the country cutting back benefits.

He writes: "Driven by the economic downturn, enrollment in the state-federal program rose by 8.5 percent in fiscal year 2010, which for most states ended in June, according to study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. State spending on Medicaid jumped an average of 8.8 percent in 2010, the biggest increase in eight years and the second biggest jump in two decades, the study found" (Galewitz, 9/30). Read the entire story.