Louisiana: Medicaid expansion enrollment up 34% since COVID hit; total Medicaid up 15%

I've once again relaunched my project from last fall to track Medicaid enrollment (both standard and expansion alike) on a monthly basis for every state dating back to the ACA being signed into law.

For the various enrollment data, I'm using data from Medicaid.gov's Medicaid Enrollment Data Collected Through MBES reports. Unfortunately, they've only published enrollment data through December 2020. In some states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources.

Today I'm presenting Louisiana. For enrollment data from January 2021 on, I'm relying on adjusted estimates based on raw data from the Louisiana Health Dept.

ACA Medicaid expansion didn't go into effect until halfway through 2016, but since then total enrollment averaged between 1.6 - 1.7 million people in LA. Since COVID hit last February, enrollment in non-ACA Medicaid has only increased a modest 6.8%, but ACA expansion enrollment has gone up by 34% for an overall increase of 14.8% statewide.

Louisiana has 4,657,757 residents according to the 2020 U.S. Census. As of April 2021:

• around 1.86 million are enrolled in Medicaid overall, or nealry 40% of the population
• around 1.22 million are enrolled in non-ACA Medicaid
• around 642,000 are enrolled in ACA Medicaid expansion.

• Add in the ~77,000 subsidized ACA exchange enrollees and that's around 719,000 Louisiana residents who would lose healthcare coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, or 15.4% of the state population.