Illinois: Medicaid expansion enrollment up 30% since COVID hit; total Medicaid up 25%

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 Illinois. For enrollment data from January 2021 on, I'm relying on adjusted estimates based on raw data from the Illinois Dept. of Healthcare & Family Services.

Illinois total Medicaid enrollment drifted gradually downwards from a high of around 3.0 million back in early 2015 down to around 2.7 million statewide just before the COVID pandemic hit last spring. Since then, non-ACA Medicaid enrollment has jumped 23.8%, while ACA expansion enrollment is up a whopping 30.3%. This brings total enrollment up by around 25.5% from pre-COVID levels.

Illinois has 12,812,508 residents. As of April 2021:

• around 3.31 million were enrolled in Medicaid overall, or 25.9% of the population
• around 2.42 million were enrolled in non-ACA Medicaid
• around 891,000 were enrolled in ACA Medicaid expansion.

• Add in the ~253,000 subsidized ACA exchange enrollees and that's around 1.144 million Illinois residents who would lose healthcare coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, or 8.9% of the state population.