By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A new report from federal officials shows that Medicaid enrollment in Kansas continues to climb.
Kansas officials said they attribute the increase to greater awareness of the program due to the Affordable Care Act and the recent promotions and advertising of the health insurance marketplace.
“We are not surprised to see the increased enrollment. As the AON study and others predicted, implementation of the ACA at the federal level influenced Medicaid and CHIP enrollment in Kansas and other states,” said Miranda Steele, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the state’s lead Medicaid agency. CHIP is the acronym for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. In Kansas, Medicaid and CHIP are combined for marketing purposes and known as KanCare.
The study was done by the consultant group AON Hewitt for the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback when it was considering the possibility of expanding eligibility for the state’s Medicaid program.
Brownback and others in his administration have cited the report when describing their concerns that expanding the program could cost the state too much money.
The consultants predicted that Medicaid-CHIP enrollment would increase by 20,563 this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act, even if state policymakers chose against broadening the program, as the result of what is called “the woodwork effect.”
Presumably, people already eligible for Medicaid but perhaps unaware of the program came “out of the woodwork” as they learned they could get benefits.
According to the federal report released Friday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Kansas enrollment grew to 415,284 in February, a 4.3 percent increase over monthly averages preceding the October launch of the Obamacare marketplace.
Steele said enrollment rose another 5,000 in March even though KDHE “had temporarily delayed eligibility reviews as part of the conversion to the ACA-mandated Modified Adjusted Gross Income methodology and the transition to our new eligibility system.”
She said those reviews have since resumed.
According to the AON forecast, growth in Kansas Medicaid-CHIP enrollment will “ramp up” by 41,538 enrollees by the end of 2016.
The consultants predicted that more than 225,000 Kansans would gain Medicaid-CHIP coverage if state policymakers chose to loosen eligibility restrictions in keeping with the Affordable Care Act.
Kansas currently has some of the most restrictive sign-up standards in the nation with benefits mostly limited to poor children, elderly and the disabled. Childless, able-bodied adults can’t qualify regardless how poor they are.