February 28, 2011 | 9:37 AM | By

DC ranks at the top of Medicaid costs

By Dana Farrington

Medicaid costs

A PBS graphic

As the spotlight in D.C. continues to shine on Sulaimon Brown, a recently fired auditor at the Department of Health Care Finance, we thought we’d bring you some numbers on the District’s Medicaid spending.

A recent NewsHour PBS photo essay breaks down 2012 Medicaid budgets and 2009 spending for the 50 states and D.C. The District ranked number one in two areas in 2009: Medicaid cost per capita and the percentage of the population enrolled in Medicaid.

*Cost per capita: $2,836
Percent of total population in Medicaid: 24 %
(*The NewsHour confirmed that this figure is the combined cost for the federal and city governments.)

D.C. also offers the D.C. HealthCare Alliance program, which covers people who are not eligible for Medicaid, including “non-disabled childless adults, non-qualified aliens and some individuals who are over-income for Medicaid.”

In other news, Wayne Turnage, who fired Brown last week, was expected to have been confirmed as the director of Health Care Finance.

  • Rmandle

    This is a false comparison. DC is a city and you are comparing to states. If you lined up DC with other cities of comparable size, we’d likely fall somewhere in the middle.

    This report is comparing apples to oranges.

  • DC Rob

    And by “you” I mean the “NewsHour PBS photo essay”! :)