Health Law and Policy Commons^™

The Impact Of Reagan-Era Politics On The Federal Medicaid Program, Ken Wing

Faculty Articles

The political future may be difficult to predict with specificity, but surely the level of publicly-sponsored medical care for the poor will be severely reduced in the coming years, leaving millions of poor Americans to rely on the charitable capacity of the nation's health care providers-or simply to go without. What follows is an attempt to support this characterization of Medicaid and its political future. Section I of this article is a description of Medicaid, its structure prior to 1981, and the legal and political history of its development and implementation. In addition to providing the basis for understanding the …