New York’s per capita Medicaid spending jumped 14 percent in 2023, moving it further ahead of the rest of the country, recently released nationwide data show.

In the federal fiscal year that ended last September, New York spent $94.6 billion $95.6 billion on Medicaid health coverage for the low-income and disabled, according to an annual fiscal report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

That amounted to more than $4,800 for each resident, which was 21 percent more than the No. 2 state, New Mexico, and 82 percent above the national average (see chart). That latter gap widened from 61 percent in 2019.

The state-funded portion of New York’s Medicaid spending was $1,800 per capita, which was more than double the national average of $835.

New York’s No. 1 spending rate is driven by a combination of high enrollment, broad benefits and high costs of care relative to other states.

Medicaid covers 7.5 million New Yorkers, or 38 percent of the population, when the state’s poverty rate is about 14 percent. Its benefit package includes unusually expansive coverage for long-term care, which has led outlays for in-home services to explode in recent years.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, state-funded Medicaid spending has been rising at some of the fastest rates in the program’s 59-year history, jumping 53 percent between 2019 and 2024.

This year’s budget deal between Governor Hochul and the Legislature slowed the growth but also authorized a new tax on health plans designed to generate billions in additional federal Medicaid funding, which would pave the way for more spending increases in the future.