The Starting Point: The Balance of State Long-Term Care Systems Before the Implementation of the Money Follows the Person (MFP) Demonstration

The Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration provides federal grant funds to 29 states and the District of Columbia1 to support state efforts to rebalance their long-term care systems. This report provides an early assessment of the balance of state long-term care systems before the implementation of the demonstration. We examine the starting points for the grantee states before the effects of MFP began to occur to develop a baseline against which the impacts can be measured as the program matures and evolves. We use this baseline information to identify key differences in the makeup of states’ long-term care systems. These observations suggest that the impacts of the MFP program are likely to differ across states.