No. Almost half (48 percent) of Medicaid recipients are children. Adults, primarily low-income working parents, make up nearly a third (27 percent). Disabled Americans make up 16 percent and the elderly 9 percent, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. The 1996 welfare law no longer links Medicaid to welfare. Today, most Medicaid beneficiaries are not on welfare, a striking difference from 20 years ago when three-fourths of people on Medicaid ... received welfare.