Roughly 84 million people are covered by Medicaid and as many as 14 million people could be at risk of losing access the healthcare coverage.
Over the next year, states will be required to start checking recipient’s eligibility for the first time in three years since the COVID-19 pandemic put the process on halt.
Starting in April, Florida will start removing people who no longer qualify for Medicaid.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the federal government prohibited states from kicking people off Medicaid, even if they were no longer eligible. Before the pandemic, people would regularly lose their Medicaid coverage if they started making too much money to qualify for the program, gained health care coverage through their employer or moved into a new state.
Recipients will have to fill out forms to verify their personal information, including address, income and household size.
Jamie Neal, clinic director for Life Tree Women’s Care said this change could lead people to not get health care at all.
READ MORE: Millions who rely on Medicaid may be booted from program
Neal’s patients consist of 30 to 40% insured by Medicaid.
“I get new patients almost every single day,” she said. “The people who are affected by this change will be the ones who already have a hard time getting access to care due to the people in the community or the other clinics and other practices not accepting that kind of insurance.”
Florida did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but enrollment kept growing. In 2005, it was at 2.2 million. It grew to 3.7 million by the end of 2013. Then in December 2022 Medicaid and CHIP enrollment was at more than 5.6 million people. In January, over 58,000 people signed up.
Life Planning founder Carolyn McClanahan, who focuses on financial planning with Life Planning Partners, said Florida is a “hot mess” when it comes to insurance and one reason is that the state did not expand Medicaid.
“The way insurance is supposed to work is that everybody’s supposed to pay into it. So that people who get sick don’t have to pay huge out-of-pocket costs when they do get sick. Insurance does not work the way it’s supposed to work in this county because we’re not using it appropriately and the people who are running the insurance industry are making huge profits,” McClanahan said.
Not everyone will be removed from the health coverage at once, which is a relief for health providers like Neal.
Neal does, however, have an alternative option to help her patients.
“One of the ideas that we’ve come across is called direct primary care. This is a program or an agreement that the patient would have with our clinic. They will pay a small fee monthly, and they will be able to have access to getting appointments same day or next day, get all their preventative care appointments taken care of,” Neal said.
Unfortunately, even with this option, Neal still expects more people in the community to be without health care altogether.
Those who lose their Medicaid benefits will have 60 days to enroll after losing coverage.
You have 30 days to fill out the form with your personal information on it. If you don’t do that, the state can remove your benefits.
If you are concerned that you could be one of the 14 million who would be affected by this change, we want to hear from you.
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