Florida has dismissed 1.4 million participants As the Medicaid unfolding process progresses.
The Kaiser Family Foundation said that 2.8 million subscribers in the state were re-approved for government health care.
Because Medicaid continuous coverage expired this year, millions of people were required to reapply, and a significant number were denied.
However, considerable portions of that population were excluded for procedural reasons, such as not submitting the form on time, having an erroneous address, and not receiving sufficient notice of their loss of coverage.
Florida’s Medicaid deletions follow a national pattern in which at least 19.6 million Medicaid subscribers have been removed from their programs throughout the country. Since Medicaid’s cuts began, around 30% of participants have been reduced.
While densely populous states such as California and New York saw a large number of participants lose coverage owing to procedural issues, Florida’s loss of coverage was also linked to its unique Medicaid regulations.
“A significant factor that is likely causing higher number of disenrollments due to non-procedural reasons is the fact that Texas and Florida did not adopt the Medicaid expansion which allows more people to qualify for Medicaid,” Chris Fong, the CEO of Smile Insurance, told Newsweek.
According to Fong, most Americans lose Medicaid simply because they are unaware of form deadlines or criteria.
In these circumstances, he suggests contacting the state Medicaid organization right once to find out why you lost coverage and reapply if you still qualify.
“The losses because of a procedural issue is highlighting the lack of a thorough process for the unwinding of the Covid Medicaid protections,” Fong said. “The common story amongst the people we meet is that they were never provided notice that they lost Medicaid nor given the chance to appeal. They usually only find out that they have lost Medicaid when they try going to the doctor and they are told they have no insurance.”
Texas is similar to Florida in that it has made Medicaid less attainable for many, according to Fong.
“The additional complication is if they were to try to apply for a Marketplace plan, they will likely not get any tax credits because the Marketplace system will kick the application out to Medicaid due to their income.”