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House Research home > Minnesota Government in Brief > Government Functions and Services: Family Assistance

Medical Assistance (MA)

• Federal-state Medicaid program that pays for certain health care services for eligible individuals with income and assets below limits
• Eligible groups are low-income families; needy children in foster care; certain aged, blind, or disabled persons; pregnant women; and certain other low-income children and adults
• Federal law requires state Medicaid programs to cover certain adults without dependent children beginning January 1, 2014, and allows states to expand coverage to this group before this date. Minnesota law allows the governor to implement this early expansion by executive order, through January 15, 2011.
• MA provides all federally mandated services and most services designated by the federal Medicaid program as optional
• As of August 2010, 396,044 MA recipients received services through prepaid health plans

MA Projected Enrollees and Spending, FY 2009

Persons who are disabled or blind, or elderly, made up 30 percent of MA enrollees but accounted for 73 percent of expenditures in fiscal year 2009.

	Enrollees by category	Spending by category (millions)
65 or older	55,292	$1,510
Disabled or blind	102,685	3,057
Families with children	368,612	1,698
Total	526,588	$6,265

Projected Health Care Enrollees

(852,735 in FY 2011)

The enrollment figures for MA, MNCare, and GAMC assume current law and do not reflect MA early expansion under an executive order issued by the governor. If expanded MA coverage was actually implemented in January 2011, the November 2010 forecast projects average monthly eligibles for fiscal year 2011 as 681,656 for MA and 151,884 for MNCare. GAMC enrollment would be zero beginning January 2011, since the program is repealed as part of early expansion and former GAMC enrollees would be eligible for coverage under MA.

Related link:

• House Research publication Minnesota Family Assistance Guide (PDF)

Originally published January 2011. The fiscal year 2011 projections are from the Department of Human Services, November 2010 forecasts of family self-sufficiency and medical programs. Other data are from DHS, MDE, MHFA, and other sources.