 The unlikely portrait of Medicaid in the time of coronavirus looks like Jonathan Chapin, living with his wife and 11-year-old daughter in a gated community in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Chapin had a thriving Reno, Nev., production company, We Aint Saints, booking bands, managing weddings, hosting 600-strong karaoke nights at the Tahoe Biltmore Lodge Casino. When the novel coronavirus came, forcing northern Nevadas entertainment industry to go dark, he said, everything I knew all disappeared. The familys health insurance gone along with their income, Chapin applied online for Medicaid on April 1, the day after his wifes job ended and three days before he needed a molar pulled. By the time his mouth was throbbing, Chapin and his family had become early additions to Nevadas Medicaid rolls - rolls swollen now to record levels while pandemic-inflicted fiscal wounds have damaged the states ability to afford the safety-net health coverage. By the most recent count, the roster of Nevadans on Medicaid has climbed from fewer than 644,000 in February, the month before the state reported its first case of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, to about 731,000 through August. That 13.5 increase places Nevada among at least three states, along with Kentucky and Minnesota, where the cadre of people on Medicaid has spiked that much, including families, like the Chapins, who have never before asked for government help. But increases are widespread: Caseloads had risen on average 8.4 through July in 30 states for which researchers have enrollment information. And in 14 states with enrollment data through August, the average is 10. If the past is a guide, this is merely the beginning. During the Great Recession from late 2007 to mid-2009 and previous bad economic spells in the history of Medicaid, Americans... 