State updates Medicaid expansion numbers

Apr. 3—TRIAD — State officials report that more than 400,000 North Carolinians have signed up for Medicaid health insurance coverage since the expansion of the program four months ago, including nearly 38,000 in the three-county region around High Point.

The governor’s office and N.C. Department of Health and Human Services updated the enrollment figures this week. Sign-ups began Dec. 1.

In Guilford County more than 23,500 new clients have enrolled. The total is more than 7,200 in Randolph County and more than 6,900 in Davidson County, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

New enrollees disproportionately live in rural counties and are between the ages of 19 and 29, Gov. Roy Cooper said.

“So many younger, working people desperately need affordable health insurance, and Medicaid expansion fills the bill for thousands of them and with people all the way through age 64,” he said.

Since Dec. 1 North Carolina has enrolled an average of more than 1,000 people per day in the Medicaid expansion, which North Carolina officials say is a faster pace than in other states that expanded the program.

For the more than 400,000 new enrollees, Medicaid has provided about 705,000 prescriptions and covered about $11.2 million in claims for dental services since Dec. 1, state officials report. The state is expected to sign up a total of at least 600,000 new Medicaid enrollees over two years.

After years of not being able to craft a deal on Medicaid expansion, Cooper and Republican leaders of the N.C. General Assembly reached an agreement in March 2023. The lag time between the deal and expansion of coverage gave state and county agencies time to gear up to handle the influx of new Medicaid applications.

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