Biden administration urges states to slow down on dropping people from Medicaid

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Biden administration on Monday urged states to slow down their purge of Medicaid rolls, citing concerns that large numbers of lower-income people are losing health care coverage due to administrative reasons.

The nation's Medicaid rolls swelled during the coronavirus pandemic as states were prohibited from ending people's coverage. But that came to a halt in April, and states now must re-evaluate recipients' eligibility — just as they had been regularly required to do before the pandemic.

In some states, about half of those whose Medicaid renewal cases were decided in April or May have lost their coverage, according to data submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and obtained by The Associated Press. The primary cause is what CMS describes as “procedural reasons,” such as the failure to return forms.

“I am deeply concerned with the number of people unnecessarily losing coverage, especially those who appear to have lost coverage for avoidable reasons that State Medicaid offices have the power to prevent or mitigate,” Health and Human Services Secretary Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in a letter Monday to governors.

Instead of immediately dropping people who haven't responded by a deadline, federal officials are encouraging state Medicaid agencies to delay procedural terminations for one month while conducting additional targeted outreach to Medicaid recipients. Among other things, they're also encouraging states to allow providers of managed health care plans to help people submit Medicaid renewal forms.

Nobody "should lose coverage simply because they changed addresses, didn’t receive a form, or didn’t have enough information about the renewal process,” Becerra said in a statement.

States are moving at different...