www.nbcnews.com Open in urlscan Pro
2600:1408:c400:1885::2506  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

NBC News Logo
 * Israel-Hamas War
 * Politics
 * U.S. News
 * World
 * Business
 * Health
 * NBC News Tipline
 * Video
 * Culture & trends


NBC News Logo

Sections

 * Meet the Press
 * U.S. News
 * Politics
 * World
 * Local
 * Business
 * Health
 * Investigations
 * Culture & Trends
 * Science
 * Sports
 * Tech & Media
 * Video Features
 * Photos
 * Weather
 * NBC Select
 * Decision 2024
 * NBC Asian America
 * NBC BLK
 * NBC Latino
 * NBC OUT

Featured

 * NBC News Now
 * Nightly Films
 * Stay Tuned
 * Special Features
 * Newsletters
 * Podcasts
 * Listen Now

tv

 * Today
 * Nightly News
 * MSNBC
 * Meet the Press
 * Dateline

Follow NBC News

 * 
 * 
 * 

More From NBC

 * CNBC
 * NBC.COM
 * NBCU Academy
 * Peacock
 * NEXT STEPS FOR VETS
 * NBC News Site Map
 * Help

 * About
 * Contact
 * Help
 * Careers
 * Ad Choices
 * Privacy Policy
 * Do Not Sell My Personal Information
 * CA Notice
 * Terms of Service (Updated JULY 7, 2023)
 * NBC News Sitemap
 * Closed Captioning
 * Advertise
 * Select Shopping
 * Select Personal Finance

© 2023 NBCNEWS.COM

Close the sidebar
Health Care


MORE THAN 13 MILLION PEOPLE LOST MEDICAID COVERAGE THIS YEAR, WITH TEXAS AN
EPICENTER OF THE 'UNWINDING'

Eligibility checks for Medicaid were paused during the pandemic. Many people are
still losing coverage in the bureaucratic jumble that has ensued since they
resumed.


SHARE THIS —
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Dec. 30, 2023, 8:00 AM EST
By Inyoung Choi, Arleen Aguasvivas and Zinhle Essamuah

Erica Olenski, a single mother of three in McKinney, Texas, juggles the
responsibilities of parenthood and a full-time job, in addition to the demands
of her 5-year-old son’s brain cancer.

August was diagnosed in May 2019 and was declared cancer-free the following
year, though medical complications lingered. Then in September of this year, he
relapsed and restarted radiation treatment, Olenski said. Roughly two months
later, a letter came: The Texas Health and Human Services Commission said August
and one of his siblings were no longer eligible for Medicaid and would be kicked
off unless Olenski could provide documentation verifying her employment
history. 




She had roughly three weeks before August would lose coverage. 

"It’s already stressful enough to go through cancer treatment with a child. I
mean, pediatric cancer is awful. It’s absolutely awful," Olenski said. "And then
to have something like this, that really seemed like an administrative issue,
threaten our sense of stability and safety as we’re going through something
that’s really traumatic was awful."

For August in particular, Medicaid was a lifeline — it covered radiation and
private nurses to care for him around the clock, Olenski said.

Her family is one of many that, over the last eight months, have had to navigate
the phenomenon called Medicaid "unwinding": Since April, states have been
re-evaluating the eligibility of the program’s enrollees on a vast scale
following a three-year pause on eligibility checks during the Covid pandemic.



Ordinarily, people enrolled in Medicaid — government-provided health insurance
for people with low incomes or disabilities — go through eligibility checks
every year to determine whether they can renew coverage. But in March 2020, the
federal government froze the checks as part of its public health emergency. So
people were continuously enrolled in Medicaid, and no one was dropped for three
years.

That stopped when President Joe Biden ended the emergency in the spring. Many
months later, Medicaid enrollees across the country are still getting letters
like Olenski’s as part of the "unwinding" process, which is scheduled to
continue through May. After that, the pre-pandemic status quo resumes. 

As of Dec. 20, at least 13 million people had been disenrolled from Medicaid in
2023, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonprofit group focused on health
policy. Net enrollment in the program (given that some people were newly
enrolled or have re-enrolled) has dropped by around 7.8 million, according to an
analysis by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

"This is huge. We’ve never seen a decline like this," said Joan Alker, the
center’s executive director.



Just over 70% of Medicaid disenrollments in states with available data were for
procedural reasons, such as missing paperwork, the KFF analysis found. 

Losing coverage can have life-or-death consequences, even if it is eventually
restored. 

"For someone who has a chronic disease or disability, a lapse in coverage can
actually cause their existing medical condition to worsen significantly," said
Jaeson Fournier, the CEO of CommUnityCare Health Centers, a federally qualified
health center in Austin, Texas, with clinics offering free and low-cost care.
"We do know very definitively that individuals who lack access to insurance,
including Medicaid, will actually forgo needed services because of cost."

Texas is "ground zero" for the Medicaid unwinding, Alker said. The state leads
the U.S. in disenrollments, with around 1.7 million this year, according to KFF.
As of late November, nearly 990,000 renewal applications in the state had been
denied for procedural reasons.



Daniel Tsai, the director of the Center for Medicaid and Children’s Health
Insurance Program Services, said his staff met with Texas officials to review
the state’s eligibility evaluation process and assess cases in which people had
lost Medicaid.


RECOMMENDED


HEALTH CAREPATIENTS GET MORE INFECTIONS AND FALL MORE OFTEN AT PRIVATE
EQUITY-OWNED HOSPITALS

"We did require Texas to reinstate over 90,000 people that were incorrectly
disenrolled from the program," Tsai said.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission told NBC News in a statement that
it "planned this massive unwinding effort for more than a year," and that if
problems arise, the commission "works systematically to resolve any issues and
reinstate recipients’ coverage if necessary."

Tsai said that during the pandemic, Medicaid enrollment grew to record highs. So
now, the unwinding process requires an “unprecedented level of effort” as states
try to play catch-up, he said. 



"We’ve never had 97 million people enrolled in the program," Tsai said. "And
we’ve never tried to do this all at once."

Olenski, who works in health care communications, spent what she called a
"defeating" few weeks phoning case workers and state agencies — anyone who could
help — in an attempt to keep August’s Medicaid coverage. On Dec. 1, she said, he
was briefly dropped. But the Texas Health and Human Services Commission
reinstated August’s coverage the same day.

In a statement, the commission said it "did not receive a renewal application in
time to redetermine eligibility for ongoing Medicaid coverage" for August.

"HHSC takes all possible actions to provide benefits to eligible Texans as
quickly as possible," the statement added. "We have taken several measures,
including leveraging technology and standardizing on-the-job training, to
improve the eligibility process."



However, Marisol Garcia, a financial assistant at CommUnityCare Health Centers,
said some people have lost their Medicaid benefits without even realizing it.

"We’ve been seeing a lot of patients that have no idea that their Medicaid
ended," Garcia said. "We have been constantly busy all the time."

Kids have been significantly affected by the unwinding — net enrollment for
children on Medicaid declined by over 3.2 million this year, according to the
Georgetown analysis. In September, the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services announced that half a million children had regained coverage after the
federal government worked with states to address renewal processing issues.

Olenski said her fight to keep August on Medicaid required "every extra ounce of
time" she had — hours she doesn’t think she should have had to spend.



"My son is an active brain tumor patient undergoing active treatment. If
somebody’s telling me it’s a paperwork issue, I don’t care, then they need to
figure it out," she said. "That’s not my job to do. My job is to be his parent
and advocate — and I deserve to be his mom."

Inyoung Choi

Inyoung Choi is an associate producer for NBC News.

Arleen Aguasvivas
Zinhle Essamuah

Zinhle Essamuah is a correspondent and anchor for NBC News.

CONTINUE READING




we and our partners use cookies on this site to improve our service, perform
analytics, personalize advertising, measure advertising performance, and
remember website preferences. by using the site, you consent to these cookies.
for more information on cookies including how to manage your consent visit
our cookie policy.

continue



 * About
 * Contact
 * Help
 * Careers
 * Ad Choices
 * Privacy Policy
 * Do Not Sell My Personal Information
 * CA Notice
 * Terms of Service (Updated JULY 7, 2023)
 * NBC News Sitemap
 * Closed Captioning
 * Advertise
 * Select Shopping
 * Select Personal Finance

© 2023 NBC UNIVERSAL

NBC News LogoMSNBC LogoToday Logo