The projections from the health consulting firm Avalere come as states undertake a sweeping reevaluation of the 94 million people enrolled in Medicaid, government’s health insurance for the neediest Americans. A host of problems have surfaced across the country, including hourslong phone wait times in Florida, confusing government forms in Arkansas, and children wrongly dropped from coverage in Texas.
“Those people were destined to fail,” said Trevor Hawkins, an attorney for Legal Aid of Arkansas.
Hawkins helped hundreds of people navigate their Medicaid eligibility in Arkansas, as state officials worked to “swiftly disenroll” about 420,000 people in six months’ time. He raised problems with Arkansas’ process — like forms that wrongly told people they needed to reapply for Medicaid, instead of simply renew it — with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
This is a ridiculous headline. It’s a state administered program! You have states like New York that make a huge effort at getting people enrolled and covering as many as possible. And you have red states with bizarre lottery systems and many states that still haven’t expanded Medicaid and taken tons of extra funding that is available for them right now if they want to cover more people. The Biden admin has very little leverage with these states. The Supreme Court long ago made it very clear this is all up to the states. I don’t see what on earth this article wants the federal government to do about this. Withhold even more Medicaid funding from those states? They’d probably be delighted. And I doubt that’d be legal.
Hate how nothing is the fault of Republicans in the media these days. Every story is just, Democrats should have done more to stop Republicans somehow, so everything wrong is actually the Democrats fault. Like, maybe the Republicans knee capping Medicaid in every state they control and on the federal level trying to limit health care access and holding the government and the nation’s credit hostage to get even more cuts to healthcare are the ones at fault here. Just maybe?