As brought out by a new report, by the end of 2009 one in six U. S. residents were covered under Medicaid and about 3.7 million people took coverage under the insurance program for the poor in the previous year.

The report was released by non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation on Thursday. The Medicaid participators surged to 8.2% in December 2009 from December 2008 and the total enrollment stood at 48.5 million people in 2009. The reason behind the uplift was the increasing jobless rate and loss of health insurance.

In the previous year, the expenditure on Medicaid advanced 8.8%, which was the highest since 2002. The increase in the enrollment began after recession and nearly six million people joined Medicaid, from December 2007 through December 2009.

The recession caused the upsurge in the Medicaid enrollment in every state and put a burden on state budgets.

Diane Rowland, Executive Vice President of the Kaiser Family Foundation said, "The recession swamped state budgets and Medicaid programs, but with the extra federal aid, Medicaid helped millions of additional people as intended during tough times".

With the approval of Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has reduced the income slab for joining Medicaid would propel additional people into the program.