Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
About 15 million people may drop off Medicaid rolls in the coming year as states redetermine program eligibility with the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of state officials found.
The big picture: States that were able to report projected coverage losses estimate that about 18% of Medicaid recipients will be disenrolled after program rolls surged during the pandemic.
- More than 91 million adults and children were covered by Medicaid or CHIP as of November. Eligibility redeterminations will start next month, prompted by the end of policies that guaranteed continuous coverage during the health emergency.
What they found: States can use Social Security or wage data to verify if a person still meets the safety net program's eligibility criteria and renew them. KFF found some states, like Arizona and Oregon, expect to use the process to renew 75% of beneficiaries while others including California, New Jersey and Georgia will use that process less than 25% of the time.
- About half of the states (27) have been flagging individuals who may no longer be eligible or who did not respond to renewal requests.
- Sixteen states reported having a greater than 10% shortage of workers for redeterminations.
- Alaska, Minnesota and Missouri offer no way for people to renew Medicaid coverage online, per the KFF survey.
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