Medicaid and indigent care issue brief: Medicaid: access to health services

Medicaid provides health insurance coverage to low-income children, parents meeting specific income thresholds, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Medicaid provided health insurance for approximately 14 million people in 1998. In that same year, however, 11.2 million poor people had no health insurance at all. In order to reduce the number of people without health insurance, states have expanded or clarified their eligibility standards to allow more people to enroll in Medicaid.