Here's How Much Medicaid Spends on Undocumented Immigrants

MedPage Today October 10, 2025
Shannon Firth

Despite claims of ‘wasteful spending,’ actual expenditures are less than 1% of total budget

Key Takeaways

Emergency Medicaid is a limited, federally mandated form of Medicaid that offers coverage to stabilize individuals with serious medical conditions who would otherwise be eligible if not for their immigration status.
Emergency Medicaid expenditures accounted for a mean of 0.4% of total Medicaid spending, at a mean cost of $9.63 per resident, a cross-sectional analysis showed.
States with larger undocumented populations spent more on emergency Medicaid, but spending was still less than 1% of the total Medicaid budget.

Emergency Medicaid expenditures accounted for only a fraction of overall Medicaid spending, a cross-sectional analysis showed.

Among 38 states and Washington, D.C., emergency Medicaid...

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