Nearly 74 million people–more than 20% of the American population are enrolled in Medicaid, the government health care assistance program for low-income people, an increase of 9.7 million people from February 2020 to January 2021.

According to the Washington Post, enrollment boosted by people who lost employer based plans and fear of medical needs as the coronavirus spread around the country.  The increase was also due in part to a provision in coronavirus relief legislation that prevents states from kicking people off Medicaid rolls during the pandemic.

“We’ve really seen how important Medicaid is to ensuring the overall health of our country and have seen this through the pandemic,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in an interview Monday.  “We are seeing what a lifeline the Medicaid program is to so, so many Americans.”

The Trump Administration attempted to include a provision in the aid package that Democrats fashioned that would require applicants to either be seeking work or to be training for another job.  A court struck down the provision, which gave millions of families some stability during the pandemic.

“If you have a large number of people going from coverage to no coverage . . . that’s a really bad situation for a lot of low-income folks. You definitely don’t want to flick a switch and have some huge number — 10 million? 15 million? — people go off the program,” Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said. “It’s jarring. . . you want to minimize the mass disruption.”