DataView: Profile of Persons With Disabilities in Medicare and Medicaid

Abstract

This DataView presents descriptive information on beneficiaries with disabilities in Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare data show that persons with disabilities have more functional limitations, poorer health status, lower incomes, and experience more barriers to health care than aged Medicare beneficiaries. Medicaid data reveal that significant growth in the Medicaid disabled population has led to the disabled outnumbering the Medicaid-eligible elderly. Additionally, Medicaid serves an increasingly younger disabled population and more persons with mental impairments.