Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released new data on state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment changes among children and youth. This is because full eligibility renewals for these programs resumed earlier this year.
Information disclosed today indicates that certain state decisions on policy at Medicaid and CHIP renewals actually concern children and families. When states use the CMS-tested flexibility, with or without expanded Medicaid, they are better equipped to protect children ‘coverage.
Based on the information
States that have adopted more federal strategies offered by CMS while concentrating on auto-renewals (ex parte) have helped even more eligible children in renewing Medicaid and CHIP coverage.
CMS’ many flexibility mean that states can more easily continue coverage for the children who are eligible, because much of the necessary data is already in the state.
The refusal to expand Medicaid and other obstacles are leaving gaps in coverage, and children and young people are falling between the cracks.
For example, more children have been enrolled in Medicaid dis-enrollments in the ten states that have not expanded–Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming –than in all of the states that have expanded.
Nineteen-year-olds, part of a permanent youth population Youth who were already 19 years of age when continuous enrollment was in force in non-expansion states makeup a permanent youth population.
The coverage gap and loss of coverage In states that did not expand before March 31, 2023, these youth accounted for an average of 27By September 2023, over 88 million people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP, including almost 40 million children and youth. In February 2020, before the start of the pandemic, nearly 71 million people, nearly 35 million of whom were children, were covered by Medicaid and CHIP.
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