By July 2021, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, there were 76,705,180 people enrolled in Medicaid. Last fiscal year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement, the federal government spent $520.58 billion on that program.
When Medicaid was created in 1965, 7.7% of American babies were born to unmarried mothers.
By 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest birth report, the percentage of American babies born to unmarried mothers had risen to 40.5%. The percentage born on Medicaid, according to the CDC report, was 42%.
As this column has noted before, Census Bureau data shows that the traditional family and economic well-being are interconnected. In 2020, according to the bureau, only 4.7% of married couple families in this country lived below the poverty level. But at the same time, 38.1% of female householders with children under 18 and no spouse present lived in poverty, as did 46.2% of female householders with no spouse present and children under 6.
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