West Virginia: Medicaid expansion enrollment up 21% since COVID hit; total Medicaid up 17%

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 most states I've been able to get more recent enrollment data from state websites and other sources.

For January 2021 and beyond, I'm using adjusted estimates based on raw data from the West Virginia Bureau for Medical Services.

West Virginia's total Medicaid enrollment (including ACA expansion) reached a peak of 575,000 in late 2016 before gradually dropping down to around 520,000...until the COVID pandemic hit our shores. Since then, non-expansion enrollment has gone up 15.2% and ACA expansion has increased by 20.9%, for an overall Medicaid enrollment surge of 16.9% from the pre-COVID era.

West Virginia has 1,793,716 residents according to the 2020 U.S. Census. As of June 2021:

• around 607,000 were enrolled in Medicaid overall, or 33.4% of the population
• around 411,000 were enrolled in non-ACA Medicaid
• around 196,000 were enrolled in ACA Medicaid expansion

Add in the ~18,000 subsidized ACA exchange enrollees and that's around 214,000 West Virginians who would lose healthcare coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, or 11.9% of the state population.