Pandemic Fuels 13% National Medicaid Enrollment Growth
National Medicaid enrollment topped 83 million lives in April 2021, according to the latest update to AIS’s Directory of Health Plans. That’s an overall increase of 12.9% from the first quarter of 2020, a highly unusual growth pattern spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, Medicaid enrollment was on a downswing for the first time since the introduction of Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act, but high unemployment rates fueled by the pandemic caused enrollment to soar in all 50 states, with an average increase of 182,000 beneficiaries per state. Eight states saw Medicaid enrollment climb by more than 20%. Even with enrollment up nationwide, Medicaid expansion is still a hot topic in states that have yet to adopt it now that President Biden has offered enhanced funding as part of the American Rescue Plan. Legislators in holdout states such as Texas have floated the idea, and ballot initiatives are picking up steam in other states.
SOURCE: DHP, AIS’s Directory of Health Plans. Learn more about how DHP delivers current and comprehensive plan enrollment data at https://bit.ly/2RidwDT.
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