OVER 4 MILLION HAVE LOST MEDICAID COVERAGE
Throughout the summer, we are publishing the NDNRC Update on a biweekly basis.
As of August 9, over 4 million Medicaid enrollees have lost covered, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Disenrollment ranges from each state, with extremes of 82% of enrollees losing coverage in Texas to 8% in Wyoming. As the trend continues, 75% of all people disenrolled had their coverage terminated for procedural reasons, causing great concern as they may still be eligible for coverage.
As a result of the many coverage losses during the Medicaid unwinding, the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) has filed a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee for some of the barriers which people with disabilities face in trying to renew their Medicaid coverage. To learn more about the NHeLP lawsuit, check out their summary.
As part of our partnership with Community Catalyst, we have a project which highlights opportunities for people with disabilities to get access to health coverage through Medicaid or the ACA marketplace. This project has provided graphics like the one below which highlights coverage options people have if they lose Medicaid. These are available in the Community Catalyst Outreach Hub and on the Organizing for Outreach materials page.
Lost Medicaid coverage during the unwinding? Kaiser Family Foundation has an article on what to know about navigating the path to obtaining insurance coverage. People who have lost coverage can enroll through their employer or a Marketplace plan through healthcare.gov.
While new coverage is available through the marketplace for people who have lost their Medicaid coverage, the Georgetown Center for Children & Families has a new blog post which indicates that individuals are not taking advantage of this other means of coverage.
Call data reported by the Georgetown University’s Center for Children & Families from the Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services showed that most states had wait times under ten minutes but three states (New Mexico, Florida, and Idaho) were over 30 minutes. Spanish speakers experienced longer wait times, requiring special attention as families with limited English proficiency are at higher risk for procedural terminations.
As the from the Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services releases critical unwinding data for each state, child-specific data fares to be limited in reports due to states not being required to include disaggregated data by age, as reported by Georgetown University’s Center for Children & Families. Without this data, states will not be able to effectively conduct outreach to children and their families in addressing disenrollment and gaps in coverage.
Unwinding the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement has begun in many states, and people have started losing their Medicaid eligibility. Over the last couple months, we have been updating our “Medicaid Unwinding Resources” blog post which has links to various resources including our Medicaid unwinding flyer.
A secret shopper study conducted by Georgetown University has found that those disenrolled from Medicaid seeking alternative healthcare coverage in the private market experienced “aggressive and misleading marketing of limited benefit products” and were not protected from these high costs. These searches for health insurance often led consumers to sales representatives instead of Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans.
Previously, we highlighted new proposed rules which would change the way that short-term plans would be able to be sold to consumers. To learn more or for links to the rules and the from the Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services fact sheet, check out our news item.
The Commonwealth Fund has a new blog post which looks at these new rules on short-term plans and points out other changes which could be made by states to protect consumers from the limited coverage that the short-term plans provide.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) covered Arkansas’ failed Medicaid work-reporting requirement and its affect on Medicaid beneficiaries. This policy did not work, as thousands of people ended up losing healthcare coverage and did not factor in disability status.
In preparation for the upcoming ACA open enrollment, CBPP will be hosting a webinar on creating plan selection tools. This webinar entitled “Under the Hood: Building Your Own Plan Selection Tools for 2024” will be hosted on Wednesday, August 16 at 2:00 PM ET.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.