Beginning January 1, 2014, millions of low-income parents and other adults will become newly eligible for coverage in states implementing the Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) expansion of Medicaid to adults with incomes at or below 138% of the federal poverty level. To help states launch the expansion and efficiently enroll eligible individuals, CMS has offered states a series of facilitated enrollment options. These options include strategies, referred to as "fast track enrollment" in the issue brief, that allow states to enroll eligible individuals into coverage using data already available from their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance programs (SNAP) and/or their Medicaid or Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs for children.

The issue brief provides an overview of the new "fast track" enrollment options, including how they have been implemented, their impacts, and key lessons learned. It is based on a series of interviews with state officials in Arkansas, Illinois, Oregon, and West Virginia conducted by Manatt Health Solutions and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

Additional Authors:
Tanya Schwartz
Samantha Artiga (Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured)