What State Are Doing to Keep People Covered as Medicaid Continuous Coverage Enrollment Unwinds

By Rachel Swindle and Sabrina Corlette

The unwinding of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement, which had been in place since the early days of the pandemic, is well under way. An estimated 12 million people have lost Medicaid as state and federal policymakers grapple with the largest shock to the coverage landscape since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. People no longer eligible for Medicaid who do not have an offer of affordable employer coverage are largely reliant on the ACA’s Marketplaces for health insurance. State-based Marketplaces have spent years preparing for the unwinding, investing in innovative programs and strategies to keep people covered. Cost and paperwork burdens can thwart those efforts, however, as private plans typically have higher premiums and cost-sharing, and Marketplace applications can be time consuming and burdensome. Some state-based Marketplaces have implemented programs to alleviate or eliminate these enrollment barriers.

In a new post for the Commonwealth Fund’s To The Point blog, CHIR’s Rachel Swindle and Sabrina Corlette assess the status of these state efforts to smooth coverage transitions and discuss the urgent need for more timely and accurate data.