Kentucky: QHP/Medicaid Tally up to 527K, but don't expect much thanks from them.

When I last updated Kentucky's numbers on August 8th, Gov. Beshear had just repeatedly stated the latest number of people enrolled via the Kynect exchange as 521,000. He didn't break this out between QHPs and Medicaid, but I used a conservative estimate of around 91K & 430K respectively. Today, the Lt. Governor gave a similarly non-broken-down update:

Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson talked about Kynect earlier today during an appearance at the Kentucky Medical Association's annual meeting. At the event, he said implementing an exchange was necessary because it increased access to health care in our very unhealthy state. He said 527,000 signed up for coverage, primarily through Medicaid, which was also expanded.

So, that's 6,000 more over the past month. Things are slowing down, most likely because there just aren't that many more people left in Kentucky who are even eligible for Medicaid expansion anymore (the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated the expansion-eligible number in KY to be around 350K, and by my estimates, they should have already hit over 90% of that as of a month ago). As far as I can tell, there were only about 30,000 more people even eligible in the state who hadn't already been added to the Medicaid/CHIP roles as of early August, so nabbing that last sliver of people is bound to get more and more difficult.

In any event, assuming a 90/10 Medicaid/QHP split, the 6K added since then should break down as roughly 5,400 & 600, for totals of around 435,400 Medicaid/CHIP enrollees and 91,600 in QHPs. Assuming roughly 75% of the Medicaid additions were previously uninsured, that should bring KY up to around 93% of the total eligible for expansion.

On the other hand, don't expect any of these people to vote for Alison Lundergan Grimes or any other Democrats as a result. Check this out:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Affordable Care Act allowed Robin Evans, an eBay warehouse packer earning $9 an hour, to sign up for Medicaid this year. She is being treated for high blood pressure and Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder, after years of going uninsured and rarely seeing doctors.

“I’m tickled to death with it,” Ms. Evans, 49, said of her new coverage as she walked around the Kentucky State Fair recently with her daughter, who also qualified for Medicaid under the law. “It’s helped me out a bunch.”

But Ms. Evans scowled at the mention of President Obama — “Nobody don’t care for nobody no more, and I think he’s got a lot to do with that,” she explained — and said she would vote this fall for Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, who is fond of saying the health care law should be “pulled out root and branch.”

Ms. Evans said she did not want the law repealed but had too many overall reservations about Democrats to switch her vote. “Born and raised Republican,” she said of herself. “I ain’t planning on changing now.”

Lovely. That really just says it all, doesn't it?