Washington, DC — Today, the Biden administration announced that nearly 500,000 children and adults who were improperly disenrolled from Medicaid and CHIP will regain their coverage thanks to steps taken by the Biden administration. Last month, CMS sent letters to states directing them to assess their automatic renewal systems in order to ensure that eligible people did not lose coverage, to reinstate coverage for those who had been wrongly terminated, and to permanently fix renewal systems. New data released today shows 30 states attested to running automatic renewal systems that don’t comply with federal requirements, and approximately 500,000 children and adults wrongfully had their Medicaid or CHIP coverage terminated. Thanks to the Biden administration’s actions, those people will once again receive Medicaid coverage and any medical bills they incurred while they were disenrolled from the program will be covered. This action further protects eligible people from losing coverage through the auto-renewal system.
The data released today show states including Nevada, Virgina, and Georgia have kicked eligible children and adults off the Medicaid rolls through their automatic renewal systems. Nevada has reinstated coverage for over 100,000 children and adults, Virginia has reinstated coverage for up to 49,999 children, and Georgia is still determining how many people it wrongfully terminated from coverage. This is in addition to eligible children and adults who have been kicked off Medicaid for procedural – or paperwork – reasons. Georgia and Florida have ended coverage for hundreds of thousands of children; Texas has ended Medicaid coverage for between 500,000 and 750,000 children. Many of the states that are needlessly throwing people off the rolls have also failed to expand Medicaid, showing how some governors are using the redetermination process as another way to limit Medicaid enrollment. In response, Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach issued the following statement:
“This announcement shows that protecting quality, affordable health care remains front and center for the Biden administration. It is unacceptable for children and families to lose Medicaid coverage because their state’s renewal system is not properly run. The Biden administration’s actions to direct states to fix their systems permanently have immediately protected coverage for half a million people, and thousands more in the future. It’s no surprise that many of the states that are failing to keep people covered, like Georgia, Texas, and Florida are the same ones that have rejected Medicaid expansion, leaving families with no place to turn for basic health care. These governors need to ensure people who qualify for Medicaid are not being kicked off, period.”