Millions of Consumers at Risk of Losing Medicaid Coverage Due to Expiring COVID Policies

By Consumers for Quality Care, on December 6, 2023

Healthcare Dive reports that as many as 30 million consumers could lose Medicaid coverage in the 2024 fiscal year. This is owing to the expiration of COVID–era policies that expanded the program, according to research by the consultancy Avalere. These figures are double what the Biden administration estimated earlier in the year. Already 10 million consumers have lost their Medicaid coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a federal emergency declaration prevented states from removing patients from their Medicaid rolls, even if they no longer met the program’s eligibility requirements. But now that the public health emergency has expired, states are free to redetermine who is eligible for Medicaid, and millions of consumers are losing coverage.

Redetermination resumed in April of this year, and it forecasted that national Medicaid enrollment will decline by 8.6 percent as a result. This would be the highest year-over-year drop since 1998. 

Many patients are losing coverage through no fault of their own. Of the 10 million Medicaid patients who have lost coverage so far this year, nearly three-fourths of them were dropped for procedural reasons, such as incorrect paperwork and coding errors.

The Biden administration is taking steps to correct this by pausing redeterminations in multiple states and by requiring states to reenroll eligible consumers who dropped owing to procedural errors. 

CQC urges lawmakers and regulators to ensure that consumers face no lapses in health care coverage due to Medicaid redeterminations.