Economic slump leads to 11% jump in Az Medicaid rolls

by The Associated Press on May 08, 2009, under Local, Special

PHOENIX – Enrollment in Arizona’s Medicaid program is surging because of the recession, with costly implications for the already troubled state budget.

The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System reports that enrollment grew by nearly 102,000 from April 2008 to April 2009, an increase of 11 percent. The increase in April alone was 21,000.

AHCCCS’ budget administrator, Jeffery Tegen, said in a memo distributed this week to Gov. Jan Brewer’s budget staff and the Legislature that the increase is due mostly to “the economic downturn and subsequent job losses.”

Tegen’s memo says the increase will add $253 million of spending to the next state budget, which will cover the fiscal year starting July 1. That budget already faces a projected $3 billion shortfall.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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