Florida Leads Nation in People Removed from Medicaid After Pandemic-Era Rule Ends

At least 303,000 people across the state have lost their health care coverage, mostly due to administrative reasons. This has generated strong pushback from President Joe Biden’s administration.

Florida, which ranks 41st in access to health care, has just earned another grim distinction. The Sunshine State now leads the country by a large margin in the number of people kicked off Medicaid health insurance since April 1, when a pandemic-era measure ended that guaranteed continuous coverage came to an end.

At least 303,000 Floridians have lost their Medicaid coverage since then, more than twice as many as in the next closest state (Arizona). Nationwide, nearly 1.4 million people have lost their coverage, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) analysis.

In Florida, 65% of those who lost their coverage did so for procedural reasons, such as not filling out paperwork or completing the renewal process. This means that as many as 200,000 or so of these individuals may still be eligible for coverage, but lost it, essentially, due to red tape.

Before dropping people from Medicaid, the Florida Department of Children and Families claims it makes between five and 13 attempts, including texts, emails and phone calls. The department said 152,600 people have been non-responsive, but in some cases, the state may have outdated contact information, or the individual may have moved and failed to receive any renewal notice.

These individuals could have their coverage restored retroactively, however, if they submit information showing their eligibility up to 90 days after their initial renewal deadline.

A Pandemic-Era Measure Comes to an Abrupt End

Medicaid enrollment surged during the pandemic, with an additional 1.2 million Floridians and more than 20 million Americans getting coverage through the program thanks to pandemic-era measures. Typically, Medicaid recipients must re-apply for coverage and prove their eligibility every year. But in March 2020, Congress passed a law requiring that Medicaid programs keep people continuously enrolled through the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), effectively pausing the renewal process and eligibility checks in order to protect public health during the pandemic.

A law passed earlier this year decoupled that provision with the PHE and allowed states to resume the disenrollments on April 1. 

The number of Medicaid recipients was always expected to decline once states were able to again disenrollments, but the way some states have rushed to kick people off Medicaid has generated strong pushback from President’s Joe Biden’s administration, which has expressed its displeasure with how some states are carrying out the task.

RELATED: Democrat Kathy Castor Urges DeSantis to Protect Medicaid Health Insurance for Children and Families

“I am deeply concerned with the number of people unnecessarily losing coverage, especially those who appear to have lost coverage for avoidable reasons that State Medicaid offices have the power to prevent or mitigate,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in a June 12 letter to governors.

Citing its concern that large numbers of lower-income people are losing health care coverage due to administrative reasons, the White House is urging states to slow down their purge of Medicaid rolls. 

People of Color Are Disproportionally Affected

According to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), a nonpartisan legislative branch agency, more than half of Medicaid recipients identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian American, meaning the ongoing loss of coverage is likely to have a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color.

Many find out they have lost coverage when they go to a pharmacy or seek medical care with a doctor or specialist. They were unaware that they needed to send in any kind of paperwork to still qualify for their Medicaid.

“Nobody should lose coverage simply because they changed addresses, didn’t receive a form, or didn’t have enough information about the renewal process,” Becerra said in a statement. 

In total, more than 1.7 million Floridians could lose access to Medicaid during the disenrollment process.

No Interest in Expanding Medicaid

Despite the ongoing loss of healthcare access in the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Republican leaders have expressed no interest in expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a move that would expand coverage to roughly 800,000 Floridians almost entirely on the federal government’s dime.

“Why not do it? Because they don’t want to give a ‘win’ to Democrats,” Florida Democratic Sen. Victor Torres, who has been working for almost a decade for Medicaid expansion, told Floricua. 

Alison Yager, executive director at the Health Justice Project, an advocacy group to bring expansion to Florida, calls it a “shameful showing. Florida ranks [near the bottom] for the rate of uninsured residents.” 

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