Colorado: Medicaid expansion enrollment up 38% since COVID hit; total Medicaid up 22%

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 Colorado. For enrollment data from January 2021 on, I'm relying on adjusted estimates based on raw data from the Colorado Dept. of Health Care Policy & Financing.

Colorado total Medicaid enrollment (including ACA expansion) reached a high of around 1.38 million people in early 2017 before gradually dropping off to 1.2 million just before the COVID pandemic hit last spring.

Since COVID hit, however, non-ACA Medicaid enrollment has jumped 26%, while ACA expansion enrollment is up 37.8%. This brings total enrollment up by around 21.6% from pre-COVID levels.

Colorado has 5,773,714 residents. As of April 2021:

• around 1.55 million are enrolled in Medicaid overall, or 26.9% of the population
• around 1.04 million are enrolled in non-ACA Medicaid
• around 516,000 are enrolled in ACA Medicaid expansion.

• Add in the ~130,000 subsidized ACA exchange enrollees and that's around 646,000 Colorado residents who would lose healthcare coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, or 11.2% of the state population.