CMS: Total Medicaid, CHIP enrollment down 3.7 percent since 2017 peak

Nearly 72.4 million people were enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program in January, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported last week. That’s 3.7 percent fewer than the peak in March 2017, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said, adding that the agency is conducting further analysis to better understand what is driving the trend. “It’s always been clear that as the economy improves, unemployment drops and incomes grow, people move off of public assistance programs like Medicaid,” she said. “We’re exploring factors like the economy, as well as systems issues, data quality and reporting, and shifts in population patterns.” According to an analysis released last week by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, the number of children enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP fell by more than 840,000 in 2018.