End of Trump-era pandemic rule has booted 1.5 million from their health care

Medicaid has so far dropped 1.5 million people from its coverage after the end of a Trump-era continuous enrollment provision that kept recipients enrolled during the pandemic, according to data received by The Associated Press.

Data obtained from more than two dozen states shows that since April, 1.5 million people have been removed from Medicaid, with more to come as states continue to conduct eligibility reviews of the more than 93 million people enrolled in the program, according to the AP. The purge comes with the end of the continuous enrollment provision that was enacted under the Trump administration to ease the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering many states to begin auditing their lists.

Most of the people being removed from Medicaid coverage were removed for not completing the necessary paperwork, the AP reports.

Medicaid enrollment numbers continue to drop as more evaluations for eligibility are done, with reports from earlier this month citing 728,000 individuals losing coverage, with many states not offering public data on Medicaid disenrollment.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra released a statement on June 12 urging states not to remove people from Medicaid solely due to administrative processes like not completing the necessary paperwork. “We take our oversight responsibilities extremely seriously, and while we know that states are working hard to meet the federal requirements, we will not hesitate to use the compliance authority provided by Congress, including requesting that states pause procedural terminations,” the statement reads.

Arkansas, which has dropped 140,000 people from Medicaid since the end of the pandemic provision, is required by its own 2021 state law to evaluate eligibility, saying, “We will continue in subsequent months to swiftly disenroll individuals who are no longer eligible, as this ensures that Medicaid resources go to beneficiaries who truly need them,” according to a statement from the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

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