STAT+: 3 trends to watch in hospitals and health insurance in 2023

For almost three years, hospitals and health insurers have been riding the waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though they can better predict what lies ahead in 2023, there remain several big unknowns. STAT’s business reporters will be paying attention to three trends in particular: the end of the public health emergency, how hospital price hikes will affect people’s paychecks, and Medicare Advantage’s explosive growth.

What will happen to the pandemic Medicaid enrollees?

The pandemic’s “public health emergency” has been a boon for state Medicaid rolls and the health insurance companies that manage those programs. Congress gave states more money to enroll lower-income people as they lost their jobs, and in return, states could not kick people off the program until that emergency designation lapsed. As a result, Medicaid enrollment soared more than 30% from December 2019 to August 2022, reaching 83.5 million people.

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