By Rebecca Adams, CQ Roll Call
June 4, 2015 -- More than 71 million people were enrolled in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in March, which is a 21.2 percent increase since the health care law's most significant coverage expansions took place.
The growth in the early part of this year has been steady but not dramatic. Medicaid and CHIP grew by 534,845 additional people from February to March, less than a 1 percent increase, according to a recent report released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Many of the additional 12 million people who joined the program since 2013 came from states that expanded the program, as the health care law allows. Expansion states' programs grew by an average of 28.1 percent.
The programs' covered population is booming in some states that implemented expansions, with half of the expansion states that reported data experiencing growth of at least 30 percent.
States that did not broaden eligibility for the program grew by an average of 8.6 percent.
The Affordable Care Act allowed states to expand Medicaid to people with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, with coverage starting on Jan. 1, 2014.
The 12 million increase doesn't count the nearly 950,000 additional people who signed up for Medicaid in seven states that expanded before Jan. 1, 2014.