Map Shows States Where 1 Million People Were Removed From Health Care Plan

Millions of Americans have been disenrolled from Medicaid plans after the federal government stopped offering continuous coverage to recipients during the pandemic.

Altogether, at least 19.6 million Medicaid enrollees were taken off their plans, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation report. This makes up 30 percent of enrollees since Medicaid began its unwinding process for Americans who are no longer eligible for the health care program.

That unwinding marks a major shift since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the federal government adopted an automatic renewal for all recipients to prevent major disruptions to health care during the global health disaster. However, starting this year, Medicaid recipients had to apply again, and many were booted from the health care they have been using for years.

Across the country, the number of disenrollees per state typically came down to how populous a state was.

The top 10 states for Medicaid disenrollments as of this month were as follows: Texas (2.1 million); California (1.6 million); Florida (1.4 million); New York (1.4 million); Pennsylvania (848,000); Massachusetts (750,000); Ohio (707,000); Oklahoma (690,000); Michigan (867,000); and Arizona (611,000).

"Since their Medicaid populations are so large, it makes sense that they also have the highest number of disenrollments during the unwinding period," Louise Norris, health policy analyst for healthinsurance.org, told Newsweek. "The number of eligibility redeterminations they're processing each month is higher than some states' total Medicaid enrollment."

Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont and the District of Columbia reported some of the smallest disenrollments, at between 5,000 and 30,000.

Not all of the Medicaid disenrollments could be attributed to sheer population size alone, however.

Southern states like Texas and South Carolina targeted enrollees who were no longer eligible under specific state-mandated guidelines, while other areas of the country sought to expand coverage.

Texas kicked off 2.1 million Medicaid enrollees and kept on 1.9 million, with many of the disenrollments concentrated among children. Roughly 65 percent of the unenrolled were children in the Lone Star state.

"It is our belief that a large portion of them qualified through the temporary COVID Medicaid expansion and now don't qualify," Smile Insurance Group CEO Chris Fong told Newsweek. He added that reinstatement will be more difficult in Texas compared to other states.

"The health care situation in Texas is very challenging, which is causing many people to go without health insurance in Texas," Fong said. "An adult may financially qualify for Medicaid in Texas, but they are not able to get Medicaid because they do not have a dependent child under 18."

States like New York, which also saw substantial numbers of Americans lose coverage, are working to expand who is eligible for Medicaid and programs like it.

New York specifically has one of the highest limits for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), at up to 400 percent of the poverty level. CHIPS is a state and federally-run program that offers health insurance to children from families with incomes too high to earn Medicaid but too low for private coverage.

The state also expanded its Basic Health Program to cover adults with income up to 250 percent of the poverty level, which is considerably higher than many other states. That means those who end up not qualifying for Medicaid this year could likely find other coverage through that plan.

Keep in mind, across all states, procedural reasons like missing a deadline or having an incorrect updated address saw a bulk of the Medicaid disenrollments. That amounted to roughly 69 percent of those removed, KFF found.

In many cases, the states lost the current contact information for an enrollee or they lost track of the deadline to apply for new coverage.

Those who lost their coverage because they were rejected from Medicaid, however, usually fell out of an eligibility category, like health or income status.

"They usually only find out that they have lost Medicaid when they try going to the doctor and they are told they have no insurance," Fong said. "The best advice we can give is if someone finds themselves in the position where they have lost Medicaid is to immediately contact their state Medicaid agency, find out the reasons for the loss, and reapply if they still qualify."