More than 10 million low-income Americans have signed up for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program known as CHIP since healthcare.gov launched in 2013, the Obama administration announced Monday.
That number would be bigger if all the states had chosen to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act. Enrollment still grew in the states that didn’t expand — by about 7 percent in November — because publicity about the health care law nudged more people who were already eligible under the old rules to sign up.
But enrollment grew a lot faster in the states that did expand, growing by 25 percent that month.
The 2010 health care law expands Medicaid to Americans earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. But under a Supreme Court ruling that states could opt out, just 28 states and the District of Columbia have chosen the expansion so far.
The law has still resulted in many more people gaining health coverage under Medicaid and CHIP. Nearly 69 million people were enrolled in the two programs as of November. In 2010, before any states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, about 56 million Americans participated.
Since enrollment in the law’s private health insurance marketplaces started in October 2013, average monthly enrollment has grown 17.5 percent faster than just before they launched. The marketplaces include both healthcare.gov and 14 being run by individual states.
“These numbers are encouraging — not because of the continued growth — but because they reflect the millions of lives changed by the Affordable Care Act,” Vikki Wachino, acting director for the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services wrote in a blog post.
