There are now just over 1.68 million Marylanders enrolled in Medicaid, the government health program for low-income residents, an increase of more than 262,000 people from before the coronavirus pandemic began, new health data shows.

The Maryland Department of Health, like other states, was required by federal officials to stop removing people from the Medicaid rolls during the public health emergency but began the effort to figure out who remained eligible a year ago.

Amid widespread concerns by advocates nationally that people who still qualified would be cut from benefits for technical reasons, Maryland officials on Thursday touted their yearlong process as an exhaustive effort to ensure that didn’t happen.

They sent the first notices to people more than a year ago that they could be cut off as early as June 2023. The eligibility threshold is set above the federal poverty rate, or about $41,400 for a family of four.

“Our unwinding efforts over the past year is a testament to the Moore-Miller administration’s commitment to leave no one behind,” said Dr. Laura Herrera Scott, state health secretary, in a statement.

The increase in state spending to cover more people than before the pandemic, however, was greater than anticipated and cited by Gov. Wes Moore as a reason yesterday to seek cuts elsewhere in the state budget.

And the number of people enrolled, as of April, was down from a year ago when 1.8 million Marylanders were enrolled in Medicaid in Maryland, a number inflated by those that no longer were eligible but not removed from the program.

Nationally, Maryland was among the states removing the fewest percentages of residents at 23% as of June, according to KFF, the health policy research organization. Disenrollment rates ranged from 13% in North Carolina and Maine to 56% in Utah.

Maryland officials said they sought to continue benefits for as many people as possible by using accessible data to automatically enroll residents in Medicaid.

Those deemed ineligible were referred to the state’s health exchange, created under the Affordable Care Act. Of about 100,000 people automatically referred, more than a third went on to enroll in a private health insurance plan, health officials said. Most people on the exchange receive some federal subsidy.