Though millions of Americans are expected to be kicked off of Medicaid in coming months, they don’t all have to be left uninsured.
But it could take some work to regain health coverage.
“For a lot of people, this can be a very disruptive period of time,” said Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University. “There is a significant time and paperwork burden being placed on families – a lot of them very low income, a lot of them medically vulnerable.”
States are now free to terminate the Medicaid coverage of residents they deem ineligible. States had been barred from involuntarily removing anyone for the past three years as part of an early congressional Covid-19 pandemic relief package, causing enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to balloon to more than 92 million people.
Of the roughly 15 million people who could lose Medicaid coverage over the next 14 months, about 8.2 million would no longer qualify, according to a Department of Health and Human Services analysis released in August.
Some 2.7 million of these folks would qualify for enhanced federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act policies that could bring their monthly premiums to as low as $0.
Another 5 million are expected to secure other coverage, mainly through employers.
Some 6.8 million people, however, will be disenrolled even though they remain eligible for Medicaid.
Check out Obamacare policies: Folks who lose their Medicaid coverage can shop for health insurance plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Those whose annual incomes remain below 150% of the federal poverty level – $20,385 for a single person and $41,625 for a family of four in 2023 – can obtain enhanced federal assistance to lower their premiums to as little as $0 a month….
Read the full article here