Open data
Take the whole dataset
Every figure on this site, in one file, with the date it took effect and a link to the state document it was read from. Free to reuse, including commercially. We ask only that you say where it came from.
What is in it
- Rows
- 531
- Jurisdictions with a figure
- 42 of 51
- Sub-state regional rows
- 255
- Earliest figure
- 1988
- Newest figure
- 2026
- Version (last data change)
- 2026-09-02
- Primary
- 484
- Corroborated
- 46
- Unverified
- 1
One row for every published figure we hold, including superseded ones. A state that revises its divisor every January contributes a row per year, not just the current number. That history is the part no other source keeps.
Licence
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Copy it, republish it, build a product on it, sell that product. The one condition is that you credit The Care Ledger and link back, so a reader can check the figure against the state document the way you could.
The figures themselves are facts, and facts carry no copyright. What this licence covers is the compilation — the dating, the regional splits, the provenance, and the history. We are not claiming to own a state's number. We are asking you not to pass off the work of assembling them as nobody's.
How to cite it
The Care Ledger. US Medicaid transfer-penalty divisors by state. Version 2026-09-02. Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.22281243
The version is the date the underlying figures last changed, not the date the site was last rebuilt. Two downloads carrying the same version hold the same numbers.
Download the machine-readable catalog record with the DOI, licence, coverage and SHA-256 checksums for both distributions.
The columns
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| state | Two-letter postal code. DC is included. |
| region | The sub-state region the figure applies to, or statewide.
Federal law lets a state price by community, and several do. |
| divisor_type | statewide or regional. |
| authority_level | Whether the figure is set at state or region level. |
| program | The programme the figure governs. |
| effective_date | ISO date the figure took effect. |
| date_precision | exact when the document gives a day,
month when it gives only a month, and year_only when it gives
a year. We do not invent precision the document did not state. |
| asserted_through | The last date the source itself says this figure applied, when the source publishes a closed range. Empty when it does not. This is the state's claim, not our inference. |
| value | The divisor. |
| unit | day or month. States publish both.
Downloaded values stay in the state's native unit. Only the separately labelled
cross-state ranking normalizes daily figures for comparison. |
| source_url | The document the figure was read from. |
| retrieved | The date we last opened that document. |
| method | How the figure was located, in our own vocabulary. Kept because it is the raw provenance behind the grade. |
| rounding_rule | Our review label: up, down,
none, partial_days, or unstated. These labels
do not erase differences between daily and monthly rules; the quoted state text is
authoritative. Blank means not reviewed. unstated means reviewed and silent. |
| rounding_quote | The source's words supporting a nonblank rounding label.
Empty for unstated or an unreviewed row. |
| governing_date | Which date selects the divisor: application,
transfer, later_of_both, current,
fiscal_year, or unstated. Blank means not reviewed;
unstated means the reviewed source did not say. |
| governing_quote | The source's words supporting a nonblank governing-date label.
Empty for unstated or an unreviewed row. |
| rule_source_url | The policy document supporting the rounding or governing-date fields when it differs from the document containing the figure. |
| evidence_grade | Derived from method. See below. |
The evidence grades
- primary — transcribed from the state's own primary source document.
- corroborated — read from a handbook, chart or dated release rather than the rule document that defines the divisor. True, but one step removed.
- unverified — no primary state document could be reached. The only source located is secondary or paywalled. Treat the figure as unverified, and say so if you republish it.
Grade every row you use. A file that flattens these three into one number is less honest than the file we handed you.
What is deliberately not in it
- Six jurisdictions whose own rule requires a statewide figure that the state does not publish — Alabama, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, South Dakota and Vermont. We publish the rule, the blocker and who we asked, and no number. Any site showing you a confident figure for these six has one we could not find.
- Three states where no single statewide figure exists by design — Alaska, Illinois and Nebraska. In Illinois and Nebraska the penalty turns on what a particular facility charges; in Alaska, on the average private-pay cost in the person's own community. A national table with a number in every cell is describing a country that does not exist.
- Figures that appear only inside a worked example. A caseworker manual that says "suppose the divisor is $5,000" is teaching arithmetic, not publishing a rate. Several of those have been copied onto other sites as though they were real.
If you find an error
Tell us: contact@thecareledger.org. Include the state, the effective date, and the document you are reading. A wrong figure here is a wrong figure in whatever you built on it, so corrections travel further than compliments.