What the Medicaid Undercount Reveals About the Medicaid ‘Unwinding’
Census surveys suggest continuous enrollment policy kept millions unknowingly on Medicaid even after they moved on to other coverage
CLICK HERE TO VIEW REPORT
In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers gave states additional Medicaid funding on the condition they maintained continuous enrollment in Medicaid through the end of the public health emergency. This is referred to as the “continuous enrollment condition.” Predictably, Medicaid enrollment ballooned and created the need to, at some point, unwind this enrollment increase when states resumed enforcing Medicaid eligibility requirements. This “unwinding” began April 1, 2023. As of May 10, 2024, nearly 22 million people have been disenrolled from Medicaid health coverage through the “unwinding” process. On net, Medicaid enrollment has fallen by over 13 million after accounting for people who reenrolled or newly enrolled during that time.
Much of the media coverage on this unwinding focuses on concerns over how the process risks disenrolling people who are still eligible for Medicaid. These are legitimate concerns, but there are effective strategies in place to address them. The big story with 22 million being disenrolled should focus on how federal policies likely wasted billions of dollars to keep millions of people enrolled in health coverage they did not need or use.