“Medicaid provided healthcare coverage to 72.2 million people in fiscal year 2016, an increase of 3.1% over 2015.
That increase corresponded with a 4.9% increase in spending over 2015, amounting to a total of $580.9 billion in spending for 2016, according to a new CMS report (PDF). The agency projected that over the following 10 years, expenditures would grow at an average annual rate of 5.7%, reaching over $1 trillion by 2026.