Medicaid Enrollment – Colorado

Medicaid rolls in Colorado at “all-time historical high” in November, By Tim Hoover and Kristen Leigh Painter, January 5, 2012, Denver Post: “Nearly 615,000 Coloradans were on Medicaid in November, by far a record high, officials said Wednesday, attributing the vast bulk of the growth to economic hard times rather than recent eligibility expansions. ‘We’ve had a mushrooming of clients,’ Sue Birch, director of the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, told members of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee. Birch said the 614,146 Coloradans enrolled in Medicaid in November represented a 57.7 percent increase over January 2007. ‘This is an all-time historical high,’ she said. Added to the 71,988 children and pregnant women covered under the state’s CHP+ program – a 42 percent increase over January 2007 – it means roughly 13 percent of all Coloradans are covered by state health-insurance programs. The spike hasn’t gone unnoticed in the benefits line…”