Eligibility checks for Medicaid were paused during the pandemic. Many people are still losing coverage in the bureaucratic jumble that has ensued since they resumed.

Ordinarily, people enrolled in Medicaid — government-provided health insurance for people with low incomes or disabilities — go through eligibility checks every year to determine whether they can renew coverage. But in March 2020, the federal government froze the checks as part of its public health emergency. So people were continuously enrolled in Medicaid, and no one was dropped for three years.

That stopped when President Joe Biden ended the emergency in the spring. Many months later, Medicaid enrollees across the country are still getting letters like Olenski’s as part of the “unwinding” process, which is scheduled to continue through May. After that, the pre-pandemic status quo resumes.

As of Dec. 20, at least 13 million people had been disenrolled from Medicaid in 2023, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonprofit group focused on health policy. Net enrollment in the program (given that some people were newly enrolled or have re-enrolled) has dropped by around 7.8 million, according to an analysis by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

  • that guy
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    3411 months ago

    Texas is the third world

    • @tartan
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      3611 months ago

      I’ve lived in “third world countries”, and I’ve lived in Texas. Texas is worse.

    • @[email protected]
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      711 months ago

      Texas treats being the dumbest state in the US as a serious trophy that it aggressively defends by constantly shooting itself in the foot and screaming to the rest of the country “hah, SEE WE SHOWED THOSE POOR PEOPLE WHO IS BOSS”.

      The other states always feel really awkward and kind of traumatized by seeing Texas repeatedly empty a firearm into their foot while screaming at…themselves? but whenever another state offers to drive them to the hospital Texas spits in their face and starts screaming even louder about how they don’t need handouts… which usually culminates in them emptying another magazine of rounds into their foot to put a pin on the point. Eventually they mercifully pass out from the pain and Connecticut takes them in the back of their Camry and just never says a word about it and Texas usually has lost enough blood by that point that it doesn’t remember.

      • @blackbelt352
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        11 months ago

        Shit policy making designed to hurt the people at the lowest rungs of society and absolve those with the real power of any responsibility.

        • @[email protected]
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          -211 months ago

          This is due to a change in federal policy because the public health emergency declared due to COVID has come to an end.

          Ordinarily, people enrolled in Medicaid — government-provided health insurance for people with low incomes or disabilities — go through eligibility checks every year to determine whether they can renew coverage. But in March 2020, the federal government froze the checks as part of its public health emergency. So people were continuously enrolled in Medicaid, and no one was dropped for three years.

          That stopped when President Joe Biden ended the emergency in the spring. Many months later, Medicaid enrollees across the country are still getting letters like Olenski’s as part of the “unwinding” process, which is scheduled to continue through May. After that, the pre-pandemic status quo resumes.

      • @[email protected]
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        1111 months ago

        To prevent gaps in insurance coverage, some states, such as California and Rhode Island, will automatically enroll people who lose Medicaid in such marketplace plans. But elsewhere, Morrison and workers at similar nonprofit health groups nationwide are helping people navigate the difficult administrative process of finding the right plan. Known as “navigators” or “assisters” and publicly funded, they work with patients free of charge.

        Also, remind me where Texas stood on Medicaid expansion.

        • @blurg
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          711 months ago

          In addition to the Texas stand on Medicaid expansion, from the article:

          Texas is “ground zero” for the Medicaid unwinding, Alker said. The state leads the U.S. in disenrollments, with around 1.7 million this year, according to KFF.

          • @AA5B
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            11 months ago

            Don’t forget the very next line, Texas is responsible for …

            As of late November, nearly 990,000 renewal applications in the state had been denied for procedural reasons.

            And there’s this line

            We did require Texas to reinstate over 90,000 people that were incorrectly disenrolled from the program,

      • Flying Squid
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        311 months ago

        It isn’t. And yet Texas is still the third world.

      • @werefreeatlast
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        111 months ago

        Like I said, just fly the sick to other states and drop them off at suburbs.

  • Transporter Room 3
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    3111 months ago

    My wife lost Medicaid and now has to choose between any chance of ever getting our own place, or being able to live without nearly constant pain.

    Sure do love all this American dream I’m living.

    • @just_change_it
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      2211 months ago

      Be productive or die. That’s the message they’re sending.

      That’s what antivax is. That’s what being against masks was. That’s what crushing obamacare was. That’s what deregulation is all about. And that’s what the republican platform is built on. Be useful or die. Can’t make healthy babies? Just die. Can’t afford healthcare? Just die. Survival of the fittest (e.g. wealthiest) until the world ends.

      • @afraid_of_zombies
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        11 months ago

        No. Being productive has nothing to do with anything. How many times in your life would you have gotten on your knees to have a plumber or a car mechanic or a EMT or an electrician or heck even someone who could make a decent breakfast? How many times in your life have you demanded the universe give you an investment banker, a public policy analyst, an economist, or someone who sits on thinktanks?

        I would like us to grasp the idea that the value we produce is not connected to the compensation for that value. You can explain it to my landlord who has never worked a day in his life and inherited 17 homes.

        • Chaotic Entropy
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          11 months ago

          Do you think this person was speaking in support of those that think human life is only worth its level of productivity…?

  • @werefreeatlast
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    311 months ago

    Hey! Texas has a problem! Ship the sick people to Chicago and drop them off in the suburbs?