Roughly one in six
Kitsap County residents are now enrolled in the state’s
Medicaid program, called Apple Health.
A total of 43,833 people living in the county have signed up for Apple Health, according to a Tuesday report from the Washington Health Benefit Exchange. Kitsap ranked 10th among Washington counties for Apple Health enrollment.
Another 5,328 residents enrolled in qualified plans offered through the state’s individual health insurance marketplace, ranking eighth among Washington counties.
Statewide, 1.52
million residents have enrolled in Apple Health and 169,000
purchased qualified health plans, according to the report.
The report highlighted statistics from the insurance marketplace’s most recent open enrollment period, which ended Jan. 31. Enrollment in Apple Health continues year-round.
Kitsap County’s uninsured rate fell steeply after the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of the state’s Medicaid program. Kitsap had the smallest percentage of uninsured residents in the state in 2014.
You can read the full enrollment report here.
How sustainable is this going forward? Where one in six Washington residents are on Medicaid? What happens in the next couple of years when the federal government starts reigning in their funding (remember that Obamacare feature)? Is the state watching what has happened to other exchanges across the country? Like a train wreck that everyone keeps watching.