Is Housing Health Care? State Medicaid Programs Increasingly Say ‘Yes’

(By Angela Hart for KFF Health News)

States are plowing billions of dollars into a high-stakes health care experiment that’s exploding around the country: using scarce public health insurance money to provide housing for the poorest and sickest Americans.

California is going the biggest, pumping $12 billion into an ambitious Medicaid initiative largely to help homeless patients find housing, pay for it, and avoid eviction. Arizona is allocating $550 million in Medicaid funding primarily to cover six months of rent for homeless people. Oregon is spending more than $1 billion on services such as emergency rental assistance for patients facing homelessness. Even ruby-red Arkansas will dedicate nearly $100 million partly to house its neediest. Continue reading here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation.

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