A few weeks ago, after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) confirmed over 80 million Americans were enrolled in Medicaid or the CHIP program as of January 2021, I posted an analysis which looked at state Medicaid enrollment data beyond January.
While the "thru dates" vary from as early as February to as recent as June, my overall conclusion was that actual total Medicaid/CHIP enrollment as of last month has continued to grow, and now likely stands at more like 88 million. It's even conceivable that it's broken the 90 million threshold as of July.
As I noted:
Since then, the combination of sudden, massive unemployment combined with the Families First & CARES COVID Relief acts (which boost federal funding of Medicaid programs while also prohibiting states from disenrolling current Medicaid enrollees during the public health crisis) have resulted in overall Medicaid enrollment rising dramatically over the past year and a half.
Late last night, the U.S. Senate finally voted to approve a massive $2 TRILLION bailout/recovery bill in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. After a lot of haggling and drama, the final bill ended up passing unanimously, 96 - 0 (four Republican Senators weren't able to vote at all...due to being in self-isolation because of Coronavirus). It's expected to be quickly passed by unanimous consent in the House today and will presumably be signed by Donald Trump before nightfall.
And like that, the largest emergency economic influx bill in history is done.
There's a lot of explainers and thinkpieces being written about the bill as a whole...which elements are good, which are bad, which are flat-out offensive (especially the ~$500 billion in corporate giveaways, which still ended up in the final bill although they supposedly have some sort of oversight over which companies receive them and under what conditions), but my focus is of course on the healthcare aspects, and especially what it means for enrollment in ACA exchange plans and Medicaid via ACA expansion.
