How the End of Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Could Affect You

State Medicaid agencies can start re-evaluating eligibility on April 1.
As of November 2022, nearly 92 million people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP, the highest number on record and a nearly 30% increase over February 2020 enrollment numbers. This is largely thanks to the fact that, during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), state Medicaid agencies could get extra federal reimbursement money as long as they didn’t terminate anyone’s coverage. But this requirement is ending on April 1, and it could result in millions of people losing their health insurance.
The practice of not terminating coverage is officially called “continuous enrollment,” and it prevented people from losing their insurance during the pandemic for the usual (aka, income-related) reasons. For many people who lost their jobs during the pandemic and subsequently got on Medicaid, that meant they would remain covered unless they moved out of state or voluntarily ended their coverage—even if they started making more money than the eligibility rules allow. In general, state Medicaid agencies responded to the continuous enrollment requirement by pausing their review, renewal, and termination processes altogether.
How the End of Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Could Affect You