Washington Post, July 28, 2023, Nearly 4 million in U.S. cut from Medicaid, most for paperwork reasons
Beneficiaries typically must renew Medicaid every year, but that stopped in 2020 when the coronavirus arrived. With no one leaving the program, the number of Americans on Medicaid swelled to 85 million by this April, when the unwinding began in phases, with five states starting to terminate people. By July, every state except one had started removing some people from the program.
The [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] issued the first official unwinding data based on 18 states that began the process relatively early. The report evaluated what happened with 2.2 million beneficiaries whose status was scheduled to be reviewed. It found that 46 percent remained on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, 32% were removed from the program, and 22% of the reviews had not been completed. Of those removed, 79% were for procedural reasons.
