Just over 1.46 million persons were determined eligible for new Medicaid or CHIP coverage in October – that is an 8.6% increase from the average of the three months prior. The vast majority is Medicaid eligible (1,344,661) with 115,706 new CHIP eligibles – almost evenly divided between states that are expanding Medicaid and those that aren’t.

Based on data received from state agencies, CMS today released a report of October enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP with state-by-state numbers. The report is available here.

Overall, states expanding Medicaid saw a 15.5% increase in applications for Medicaid and CHIP while states that are not expanding Medicaid saw a 4.1% increase. The state-by-state numbers look very mixed – with some large states like Texas and Florida actually seeing fewer Medicaid applications in October than the preceding months. But bear in mind that this data does not reflect any activity in those states from the Federal marketplace since the account transfer function isn’t working yet. So it is really way too soon to conclude much at all from this data – except that there continues to be a lot of interest in Medicaid coverage!

And for Medicaid aficionados it is really exciting to start seeing this kind of data gathered almost in real time! Medicaid is notorious for not having timely, consistent data across states. CMS intends to continue working with states to refine this data and more will be available in January!