The goal of the Medicaid intergovernmental matching grant is to stimulate state spending while achieving some level of beneficiary and taxpayer equity. This study uses the Current Population Survey data on 174,031 families to estimate federal and state Medicaid tax burdens per family, net of tax...

Although the federal Medicaid matching formula was designed to decrease disparities in state Medicaid expenditures, significant inequities persisted throughout the 1980s. A potential reason for this is that states may substitute federal for state funds and hence, expenditures in low-spending...