During the 1977 Session of the General Assembly, the Senate and the House of Delegates, in Senate Joint Resolution 154, requested a study of medical and hospital care of the medically indigent in Virginia.

To conduct the study the Commission received an overview from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission staff on public funding of medical care for the indigent and medically indigent. It also heard and received information from the State Department of Health, The State Department of Welfare. the University of Virginia, The Medical College of Virginia, the Virginia Hospital Association and the Eastern Virginia Medical Authority.

Public funds are utilized to subsidize the cost of medical care for the indigent and medically indigent through such programs as Medicaid, Medicare State-local hospitalization, maternal and child health, crippled children, vocational rehabilitation and visually handicapped. Medical care is also provided through services of local health departments. Another source of public funding of medical care for the indigent and medically indigent is the State subsidy of the teaching hospitals of the two State medical schools, the University of Virginia and The Medical College of Virginia.

The medically indigent are those person who do not have sufficient means or insurance to pay the cost of medical care. The State Department of Health estimate that up to one-third of the State's population is medically indigent.