The State Division of Medicaid dropped 16,659 Mississippians off its rolls in August, bringing the total to 68,626 disenrollments since June 1, a monthly report from DOM shows.
In March 2020, the federal government blocked state Medicaid divisions from disenrolling people, even those who became ineligible, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the December 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act into law, requiring state Medicaid departments to restart eligibility determinations by April 1, 2023.
Since the DOM started unwinding on June 1, it has disenrolled about 68,626 people. DOM still has thousands more Mississippians on its roster than it did in March 2020; 716,896 were enrolled when the public health emergency began, and there were 814,786 beneficiaries in August 2023, enrollment data shows.
The August monthly report showed there were 29,788 beneficiaries “due for a renewal since the beginning of the state’s unwinding period.”
Bradley Corallo, a senior policy analyst at KFF, pointed to estimates that Medicaid would disenroll 16 million Americans during the unwinding.
“This represents the largest transition in health insurance (since the opening of the Affordable Care Act Marketplace in 2014),” he told the Mississippi Free Press on Aug. 29.
Senior policy analyst for KFF Bradley Corallo, pictured, pointed to estimates that Medicaid would disenroll 16 million Americans during the unwinding process nationwide. Photo courtesy Bradley Corallo
Adults may be disenrolled while their children remain enrolled and vice versa because Medicaid has different income requirements for children and adults, he said.
“It’s very much the case that the parents may be disenrolled during the unwinding, but the children are still eligible,” Corallo said. “And there’s definitely a lot of concern about that leading to kids actually losing coverage, too.”
“So, if a family receives a renewal packet and they see that the parents aren’t eligible, they incorrectly assume that everyone is ineligible, (and that) the family is ineligible. That may not be the case, and that’s definitely a big concern,” he continued.
Corallo said 80% of Mississippi’s Medicaid disenrollments were due to “procedural reasons,” meaning paperwork never made it to the
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