Total Medicaid
expenditures for long-term care increased 3.8 percent in 2008 reaching
a total of $106.4 billion. Medicaid is a federal/state partnership to provide health care services to the nation's poor.  In Mississippi, the 3/4 of the cost of the program is paid with Federal dollars. 

Institutional long-term care spending by the Medicaid program
increased 2.9 percent in fiscal year 20908 to $61.0 billion according
to the recent report issued by Thomson Reuters. Medicaid nursing home
expenditures increased 4.1 percent to $49 billion.

The largest total Medicaid expenditures for
long-term care services. The total expenditures exceeded $18.4 billion.  Mississippi saw spending for nursing home care increase by 86.1 percent, the highest rise in the nation.