The newest resort on the Las Vegas Strip is reportedly one of the largest employers of Medicaid recipients in the state a new report from the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.
Amazon, Walmart, Clark County School District and Smith’s top the list of employers with the most full-time employees eligible for Nevada Medicaid. All four have been mainstays of the annual report since the state began publishing the data five years ago. But this year they were joined by Resorts World, which opened in June 2021, to round out the top 5.
Overall, the state found that about 152,000 employees at companies with more than 50 employees were covered by Medicaid for the most recent fiscal year. A further 177,000 dependents of these employees are also insured.
Covering these roughly 330,000 Nevadans cost $1.2 billion last fiscal year.
Amazon, which operates a number of “fulfillment centers” in the state, has been the top employer of Nevada Medicaid recipients for the past three years. Before that, it was second only to Walmart. In its most recent fiscal year, the company employed 6,970 Medicaid recipients. Another 14,546 people are dependent on these workers and covered by Medicaid. The cost to the public: $52.9 million.
WalMart ranked second with 4,539 employees and 9,805 Medicaid members.
Resorts World opened in June 2021, marking the first new Strip resort to open since the Cosmopolitan in 2010. Resorts World said it did just before the opening 6,000 positions to fill and had received more than 100,000 applications.
According to the DHHS Medicaid Employers’ Report, 1,060 of Resort World’s employees and 2,132 of their dependents were on Medicaid. The cost of her insurance: $8.2 million.
Resorts World was one of three gaming companies to appear in the top 10. Wynn Las Vegas ranked right behind in sixth place, with 1,001 employees (and 2,182 dependents) enrolled. Wynn has also been a regular on the list, appearing in the top 10 for the past five years and only absent for the fiscal year that included mass layoffs in the gaming and hospitality industries.
Aria ranked 10th with 744 enrolled employees (and 909 dependents). This company has been in the top 10 before – also at #10.
Also in the top 10 were Telus International, Sitel Operating Corporation and the State of Nevada. Telus and Sitel are both customer experience companies that operate call centers in southern Nevada.
Here’s the complete top 10 Nevada employers with employees on Medicaid. These 10 companies account for 13% of the total cost of Medicaid.
DHHS notes that 46% of the Medicaid-enrolled employees covered in the report made above the equivalent of the May 2021 Nevada median wage, which was $18.22 per hour.
Nevada offers Medicaid to people living up to 138% of the federal poverty line, which varies based on the number of people living in a household. According to Nevada HealthLink, that works out to $16,753 per year for an individual, or $34,638 per year for a family of four.
The state’s Medicaid Employer Report contains some important caveats. The first is that under the federally designed public health emergency, states have been strictly barred from opting out of Medicaid. That means “an unknown portion” of the Medicaid beneficiaries included in this year’s report may not be eligible at this time, but are considered eligible due to the public health emergency.
This designation’s scheduled expiration in April will likely result in a decline in Medicaid enrollments statewide.
It’s also important to note that the report lists and ranks companies by the raw number of employees and dependents they have enrolled in Medicaid, which means it doesn’t take into account the total number of employees at each individual company. The exact number of employees each company has is not public information.
Some people can also be duplicated when moving from one large employer to another.
Nevada DHHS is required to prepare and make available the annual report. The requirement was established by the legislature in an invoice from 2017 sponsored by then-Senator Yvanna Cancela.