Mass Medicaid Loss: Low-Income Americans Suffer as Pandemic Policy Expires

A regulatory change that allows states to drop Medicaid beneficiaries resulted in the loss of coverage for hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans.

Early data indicate that many Medicaid participants have been eliminated owing to procedural concerns, such as failing to complete eligibility verification papers or finding individuals. Due to the significant frequency of procedural terminations, people may lose coverage while being eligible, The New York Times reported.

Due to a stipulation in a 2020 coronavirus relief package, states could not remove Medicaid recipients until this spring. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, this ensured that people had coverage indefinitely, which caused a spike in enrollment in Medicaid.

The insurance ended on the last day of March. States have begun providing statistics on coverage reductions, highlighting the negative effect of the unwinding process on the poor and vulnerable. Sadly, many of those impacted are children.

At least 19 states have begun removing Medicaid beneficiaries. In April, 73,000 Arkansas citizens, including 27,000 children under 17, lost Medicaid coverage.

Republican Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders sees the unwinding as vital to save costs and retain Medicaid's primary purpose. She argues that Arkansas' actions are motivated by a desire to maintain government reliance.

States Taking Necessary Steps

With 95 million members, Medicaid, a joint federal-state program, is vital to the American safety net, per NPR. Without Medicaid, patients may have to pay for doctor visits, hospital stays, prescription drugs, and other medical procedures. Medicaid-dependent low-income people may find the situation burdensome.

Chiquita Brooks-Lasure, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), emphasizes efforts to prevent eligible individuals from losing coverage. Nonetheless, a new projection from the health research group KFF indicates up to 24 million people, including several still qualified but caught in administrative discrepancies, might be denied Medicaid.

The CMS requires states to have operational strategies for unwinding. These plans must prioritize renewals, set deadlines, and minimize coverage loss during unwinding, according to KKF.

States have reportedly put different plans in place to be ready for the termination of continuous enrolment laws, according to a KFF survey released in January 2023. Most states expect to finalize renewals within 12-14 months.