Medicaid enrollees must reapply every year in a complicated process fraught with hidden pitfalls that could sink one's coverage. This process was suspended during the pandemic, but the provision's end date of March 31st is fast approaching. As a result, millions of beneficiaries are set to lose coverage in the coming months, perhaps sooner depending on whether the US federal government ends the COVID-19 public health emergency in the meantime.
According to Alan Yu, “Even if the public health emergency is renewed in April, states will begin to make people on Medicaid sign up again to renew their coverage. And that means between 5 and 14 million Americans could lose their Medicaid coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the nonpartisan health policy organization. The federal Department of Health and Human Services expects 6.8 million people to lose their coverage even though they are still eligible, based on historical trends looking at paperwork and other administrative hurdles. Pre-pandemic, some states made signing up for and re-enrolling in Medicaid very difficult to keep people off the rolls.”
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(Source: NPR, January 24th, 2023)
