At least 728,000 individuals have lost Medicaid coverage since the end of the COVID-19 related continuous enrollment provision in March, according to the KFF.
The analysis only includes 13 states and the District of Columbia, and undercounts the number of people who have lost coverage since many states do not offer public data on Medicaid disenrollments, according to KFF. As many as 17 million people could ultimately lose Medicaid coverage due to the end of the continuous enrollment provision, a policy enacted under the Trump administration in 2020 which required Medicaid programs to keep recipients enrolled throughout the public health emergency, according to KFF.
Congress ended Medicaid’s pandemic-era continuous enrollment provision on March 31, and states are now beginning to resume disenrollments.
Learn more about the policy changes and their potential impacts from our updated explainer: https://t.co/rPkMFeobfW pic.twitter.com/Tw0229sx4v
— KFF (@KFF) June 12, 2023
Most disenrollments are due to procedural reasons such as failing to complete the renewal process on time or the state having out-of-date contact information, while only 10-20% are due to recipients actually being ineligible in most states, according to KFF. Iowa and Pennsylvania are the exceptions, with 45% and 57% respectively being removed due to ineligibility. (RELATED: Biden Admin Quietly Allowing Medicaid Funds To Cover Rent, Air Conditioning, Cooking Classes)
In Florida, about 249,400 people have been removed from Medicaid rolls, followed by about 141,600 in Arkansas and about 66,300 in Idaho, according to KFF. Ten more states are slated to begin disenrollments by October.
The Department of Health and Human Services is encouraging states to be flexible with procedural issues in order to avoid unnecessary disenrollments.
“Today, in support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to expanding access to high-quality, affordable health care coverage, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new flexibilities to help keep Americans covered as states resume Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) renewals. The new flexibilities were announced in a letter Secretary Becerra sent to the nation’s governors urging them to adopt all available flexibilities to minimize avoidable coverage losses among children and families,” a CMS spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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