While most observers keep an eye on state-wide and national health insurance enrollment figures in search of leaps in the tens and even hundreds of thousands of people, the process of enrolling low-income adults in state Medicaid programs for which they are newly eligible is a much slower and more difficult process.

If national progress can be viewed as change on a wholesale scale, then enrolling the homeless is a retail effort with results measured one by one.

In urban areas across the country, outreach workers are visiting shelters, food pantries, and alleyways in search of candidates for Medicaid coverage.  Kaiser Health News has taken a look at how different places are approaching this challenge.  For a look at outreach efforts in Los Angeles and Chicago, in Denver and Baltimore and elsewhere, see this Kaiser Health News report.