According to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 7.7 percent of Americans were without health insurance in the first quarter of 2023. While this is an all-time low, it still represents a significant number of over 25 million individuals. Moreover, this number is likely to have increased since states have started disenrolling millions of people who gained Medicaid coverage during the pandemic.
Under federal legislation passed during the pandemic, states received additional funding for Medicaid on the condition that they maintained continuous enrollment for individuals in the program. Prior to the pandemic, individuals often moved in and out of Medicaid due to various reasons, such as changes in income or failure to provide necessary information for eligibility verification.
However, during the pandemic emergency period, these factors no longer had an impact on Medicaid eligibility. Once someone was enrolled in Medicaid in March 2020 or became eligible at any point during the pandemic, they remained eligible throughout the entire period. As a result, Medicaid enrollment grew by more than 30 percent, covering over 90 million people.
Recently, Congress ended these protections, allowing states to remove individuals from Medicaid rolls since April. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), approximately 3.8 million Americans have already been disenrolled as of Tuesday. In many cases, the termination of coverage was due to procedural issues like missing or incorrect paperwork or outdated contact information, rather than a change in eligibility.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are closely monitoring this unwinding process and advising state officials to proceed cautiously. While some states, like Maine, have temporarily halted procedural terminations for certain enrollees to address issues with the renewal process, others are moving forward with disenrollments.
In conclusion, although the number of uninsured Americans has reached a historic low, the disenrollment of Medicaid recipients gained during the pandemic has likely pushed this figure higher. The procedural termination of coverage due to paperwork or contact information issues has resulted in millions potentially losing access to healthcare. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are closely supervising the process while urging states to proceed with caution.
[Original content source: The Hill]
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
