Nebraska: Medicaid expansion enrollment reaches 42,000 since launching last fall; total Medicaid up 33% since COVID hit

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 Nebraska.

For enrollment data from January 2021 on, I'm relying on adjusted estimates based on raw data from the Nebraska Dept. of Health & Human Services, along with this article from the Lincoln Journal-Star.

Nebraska didn't implement ACA expansion until last fall, making it impossible to compare enrollment in the program against the pre-COVID era...but total Medicaid enrollment, which hovered around 250,000 people for several years prior to both, has jumped by nealry 33% since last February.

Nebraska has 1,961,504 residents according to the 2020 U.S. Census. As of April 2021:

• around 317,000 were enrolled in Medicaid overall, or around 16% of the population
• around 275,000 were enrolled in non-ACA Medicaid
• around 42,000 were enrolled in ACA Medicaid expansion.

• Add in the ~88,000 subsidized ACA exchange enrollees and that's around 130,000 Nebraskans who would lose healthcare coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, or 6.6% of the state population.