15 Million Could Lose Medicaid Coverage As Pandemic-Era Enrollment Unwinds

About 15 million Americans could lose Medicaid health insurance coverage as states unwind the “continuous coverage requirement” implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure people retained health benefits, a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows.

The federal government has called the expiration of the coverage requirement, first authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the “the single largest health coverage transition event since the first open enrollment period of the Affordable Care Act.” The move paused disenrollment from Medicaid in February 2020 at the pandemic’s beginning and has contributed to a boom in growth of health insurance for low income Americans to nearly 95 million by the end of this month when the continuous enrollment provision ends.