Across the country, state Medicaid programs are redetermining the eligibility of an estimated 90 million beneficiaries. As experts predicted, new data from the states who have begun the redetermination process show that hundreds of thousands of people are losing coverage. These coverage losses are not a result of changes to income or eligibility, but rather largely due to administrative problems and a lack of beneficiary awareness around the renewal process. A poll from Kaiser Family Foundation this week found that 65% of Medicaid enrollees across the country didn’t even know that states could remove people from the program if they are not eligible or don’t complete the necessary steps for the renewal process. The survey also found that about 1 in 4 Medicaid enrollees don’t know where to look for other coverage if they are removed from the program, and 15% say they’ll be uninsured by the end of the redetermination process. Hundreds of thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries in states including Florida, Indiana, Virginia, and Arkansas have already been removed from the program, with experts expecting many more over the coming year.
