New Mexico: ACA Medicaid expansion enrolls 206K (21% more than total est. to be eligible)

On the one hand, this isn't nearly as big of a shock to me as it wsa when Michigan hit 600,000 enrollees (a full 100K higher than earlier eligibility estimates).

On the other hand, 36,000 more people covered than you expected is still 36,000 more people covered!

As you can see from the NM Medicaid enrollment report below (click on it to see the full-size version), as of the end of March, New Mexico was up to 205,901 people enrolled specifically in the ACA expansion program. According to the NM Human Services Dept., the state was only expecting around 170,000 people total to even be eligible.

Of course, that was in March. According to their latest projections from May, they estimate expansion enrollment has reached around 222,000 as of today...and are now projecting it to reach over 241,000 by next June. If that proves accurate, they'll have enrolled nearly 42% more people than expected.

In addition, NM is one of the few states which makes it fairly easy to figure out the "woodworker" enrollment number: Total Medicaid enrollments were at around 811K vs. 575K in December 2013 (just before expansion kicked in). That's a difference of 236,502. Subtract the 205,901 expansion enrollees and you have 30,601 additional people who have enrolled in "normal" Medicaid since 1/1/14. Of course, some of this is "normal" increases in Medicaid enrollment, but even so...

Oh, while I'm at it, awhile back Esther F. provided this report which, among other things, notes that New Mexico's SHOP (small business) exchange enrollments reached a whopping...um...877 covered lives as of the the end of March.

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