The Congressional Research Service updated their “In Focus” article, “Who Pays for Long-Term Care,” on September 19. This series of one-page articles helps congressional staff understand various policy issues. For the series, CRS analyzed data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) to examine personal health expenditures for LTSS by payer.

Medicaid constitutes the largest total spending on long-term services and supports at $467.4 billion. In this most recent update, the definition of long-term care was expanded to include Medicare post-acute care spending for nursing facility care and home health due to limitations in the NHEA data. Costs are broken down using 2021 data by public and private payers.