The Modern Medicaid Alliance’s Medicaid Dashboard — first launched in September of 2018 — has become an essential resource for federal and state leaders looking for up-to-date information on how many people are covered by Medicaid in each state and how each state’s Medicaid program is structured.
The newly updated Medicaid Dashboard as of October 2022 highlights that an overwhelming majority of Americans want to ensure the Medicaid program remains strong and stable for the millions who rely on it. In fact, 88% of Americans say it’s important to have a strong, sustainable Medicaid program in the U.S.
In addition to providing the latest, most comprehensive Medicaid enrollment research and polling, the Dashboard also provides state-specific reports for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. This year, the Dashboard also showcases newly added Puerto Rico enrollment data.
Advocacy organizations can use the Dashboard’s national and state-specific Medicaid data in a variety of ways. Below are some recommendations on ways to use the Dashboard data in your organization’s daily activities:
- Demonstrate the overwhelming support for Medicaid through advocacy tools and educational resources. The Medicaid Dashboard provides polling data at the national level, and all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, demonstrating American voters’ opinions toward Medicaid. For example, 75% of voters in Wisconsin have a favorable view of Medicaid. We encourage partners to leverage these statistics in efforts to increase awareness of the broad support for the program, or to advocate for strengthening Medicaid.
- Advocate for specific policy changes by sharing with state chapters to compare their Medicaid programs to neighboring states. Because Medicaid programs differ from state to state, organizations can utilize the Medicaid Dashboard to quickly compare one state’s program to another in order to help advocate for their desired policy changes. For example, you might use the Dashboard information for West Virginia, showing populations covered under Medicaid managed care such as foster children and children with special health care needs, to help make the case for similar coverage under managed care in nearby states such as North Carolina. We encourage partners to use the state-specific pages and “create report” function to compare state Medicaid programs and help advance their goals in a given state.
- Identify potential new partners based on population-specific data (e.g., children, people with disabilities, older adults) provided by the Dashboard. The Dashboard includes breakdowns of the types of populations served by Medicaid at the national and state levels. For example, 38% of all those covered by Medicaid in the U.S. are children, or 19% of all those covered by Medicaid in Pennsylvania are people with disabilities. We encourage partners to use the Dashboard’s population-specific data to identify opportunities for partnership with other groups that advocate for or work closely with a given population.
- Reinforce Medicaid’s role as a critical safety net amid the COVID-19 public health crisis. The Medicaid Dashboard now includes updated data demonstrating Medicaid’s role as a critical safety net amid COVID-19, including both federal and state-level enrollment information. Due to Congressional and Administrative action at the outset of the pandemic, Medicaid coverage has been accessible for the 1 in 4 Americans who needed it most as the country coped with COVID-19. Once the Public Health Emergency provisions come to an end, increased federal Medicaid funding and continuous eligibility requirements for states will expire, potentially triggering significant coverage losses.
Visit the Medicaid Dashboard at data.modernmedicaid.org and check out the Dashboard polling infographic today!