Medicaid enrollment in Florida jumped a whopping 16 percent during the period December 2008 and December 2009, according to a new survey of enrollment in the government health care program for the poor, produced by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid Facts.
In every state, Medicaid enrollment increased during that period and about half the states saw double digit growth.
While Florida’s increase was among the most dramatic, it wasn’t the largest. Alaska and Montana saw similar increases and Arizona, Maryland and Wisconsin all saw Medicaid rolls jump by about 20 percent. The biggest increase was in Nevada, which saw its Medicaid population go up 22.4 percent during the year.
The increase in Florida was by far the largest single year jump in the last decade, during which enrollment generally increased by about 5 percent on average each year. There were a couple years where enrollment went down and until last year, the largest single year uptick was a 10.7 percent increase from 2007 to 2008.
The News Service of Florida
