Just five percent of all Medicaid recipients are responsible for nearly half of the program’s expenditures.

Or so says a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Conversely, the 50 percent of Medicaid’s least costly recipients account for only eight percent of the program’s costs.

Disabled Medicaid recipients, while fewer than 10 percent of the overall total, represent nearly two-thirds of the highest-cost group.

These figures reflect spending from 2009 through 2011.

The greatest Medicaid expenditures were invested in seven types of care: for patients with asthma, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, mental health conditions, substance abuse, and delivery or childbirth along with those residing in long-term-care facilities.

To learn more about the GAO’s findings, see a summary of the report Medicaid: A Small Share of Enrollees Consistently Accounted for a Large Share of Expenditures and find a link to the complete report here on the GAO web site.