Virginia's Medicaid expansion drawing thousands more enrollees than initially projected
Less than two weeks after Virginia opened registration for its expanded Medicaid program, officials say they’ve already drawn thousands more applicants than initially anticipated.
The state had expected the new program to enroll 300,000 over the next year and a half. They now expect that number to reach 375,000. The new estimates won’t alter the total expansion population, which the state has said will be about 400,000.
Officials attributed the increase to automatic enrollment of residents who are already signed up for other social benefit programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.
“The idea is that, the people in SNAP, the food stamp program, we know who they are, we know what their income level is and we can expedite their enrollment by getting them to answer just two different questions,” legislative fiscal analyst Mike Tweedy told members of the Senate budget committee Friday during their retreat in Williamsburg.
Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2018/11/16/virginias-medicaid-expansion-drawing-thousands-more-enrollees-than-initially-projected/
