States across the country are going through a lengthy process of renewing Medicaid eligibility after a three-year hiatus, a months-long process that is expected to result in millions of people losing coverage.
The pledge is the result of striking a provision included in the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed at the start of the pandemic in 2020. The provision offered more federal funding to states if they agreed not to cut beneficiaries from Medicaid, the government-funded health insurance for low-income Americans.
“Many Americans have been able to maintain Medicare coverage during the pandemic because of Medicaid,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in an interview with Spectrum News. “And today, because everyone who is registered should be able to register and make sure they qualify, this whole process for millions and millions of Americans takes time.”
The end of pandemic-era policy earlier this year meant states had to proceed with updating Medicaid rolls and terminating people who were no longer eligible, a process officials are calling for to be resolved. The federal government estimated in August last year that about 15 million people would leave the program as a result.
An analysis of data from 29 states and Washington, D.C. by KFF Health News found that nearly two million people had been pulled off Medicaid as of July 12. However, this does not include a large portion of the states that did not provide public data.
The concern from some advocates is that people who still qualify will lose coverage because they did not receive notice to complete the eligibility check or did not understand the process.
In March, the heads of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional Black Caucus sent a letter to Becerra urging him to prevent “scattered, paper-based terminations” and expressing concern that the end of politics would disproportionately affect people Colored children.
Last month, Becerra wrote a letter to the governors recommending steps they can take to ensure more people don’t lose coverage due to “administrative processes.”
An analysis of state data by KFF Health News found that nearly three-quarters of people terminated to date had their service cut off for procedural reasons rather than due to ineligibility.
I think all countries are working hard to avoid that. So these early numbers are exactly that: They’re early numbers, not final numbers,” Becerra said. “They don’t tell us how many people have moved from Medicaid to, say, Obamacare, or how many people have moved from Medicaid to employer coverage because They now have a job where they have insurance. And so, we’ll have to wait and see.
These are preliminary numbers, emphasized Maureen Corcoran, MD, director of Ohio’s Medicaid administration. She explained that while states must submit a 12-month plan that must be approved by the federal government’s Center for Medicare and Medicare Services, each one can set up the process in their own way.
“We have 88 counties,” Corcoran said of her state’s plan, “and we took all the people and broke it down by county and projected how much each county could handle to get through in a year.”
Some states began the formal process of renewing and revoking membership as early as April, while a large group of states started this month. But Corcoran said the timing isn’t the only difference.
“(Some states) put all the people they thought wouldn’t be eligible up front, so there are a couple of states that had massive numbers that canceled very quickly,” Corcoran said. “It would be really important not to do any kind of really conclusive assessment until at least six months after that.”
“Some states move quickly, some states take a little bit longer, some states still have a lot of paper handling rather than computer processing so it will take longer,” Becerra said of the differences in state approaches. Medicaid people who think they’ve now found work, because those are the people who are likely to drop out of enrollment because they no longer qualify for Medicaid.”
Both Becerra and Corcoran said communication is essential in this process and urged those on Medicaid to check their mail and make sure their information is up to date.
“Every state is really struggling with this because people on Medicaid, typically, may be moving more, and there is more homelessness,” Corcoran said, adding that her department has been in full contact for months to let people know they need to make sure the information is up to date.
“If you’re on Medicaid, there’s nothing stopping you from going to the Medicaid website and checking to see what you need to do to make sure you’re okay,” Becerra said. He also encouraged people who have lost Medicaid coverage to visit the state health insurance website to look for other plans.
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