West Virginia: ACA Medicaid expansion up to 173.6K enrollees

Huh. This is an unexpected but welcome and very specific tweet from the West Virginia Dept. of Health & Human Resources:

173,582 West Virginians are enrolled in Medicaid expansion as of Monday, May 9, 2016.

— WV DHHR (@WV_DHHR) May 9, 2016

I haven't written much about West Virginia, and the last time I addressed their Medicaid expansion data was way back in September 2014, when they hit around 150,000 enrollees...or 100% of the total number thought to be eligible for the program.

Either those estimates were off, or the economic situation has changed over the past year or two. It's also conceivable that the state has deliberately nudged some "traditional" Medicaid enrollees over to "expansion" status in order to save money (remember, the federal government only pays 74% of the cost of "traditional" Medicaid, but 100% of expansion, though this gradually drops to 90% over the next few years).

In any event, that's over 173,000 West Virginians who are now enrolled in ACA-expanded Medicaid, or over 9% of the total state population.

As Emma Sandoe notes: 

Tomorrow, 173,582 voters could elect state reps that either deny them health insurance or maintain their coverage. https://t.co/q9Gz4MfhWq

— Emma Sandoe (@emma_sandoe) May 9, 2016