Dear Mr. Zients and Ms. Tanden:
Our organizations, representing hundreds of millions of patients and consumers facing serious, acute and chronic health conditions across the country, urge this Administration to protect access to care in the Medicaid program by taking immediate action to pause redeterminations in states where individuals are overwhelmingly losing coverage for procedural reasons.
Medicaid provides quality, affordable healthcare coverage for low-income children, adults, pregnant individuals, people with disabilities, and seniors. Our organizations are committed to helping the people we represent navigate the unwinding of the continuous coverage requirements to ensure that those who are currently enrolled in Medicaid maintain their coverage if eligible or transition to other forms of quality, affordable care. We know that you share our goal of minimizing the number of individuals who become uninsured during this process.
While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has yet to publicly release the data received from states about this process, we are deeply concerned about initial unwinding data from multiple states showing that the vast majority of people have lost coverage because of administrative issues. Based on available data collected from the Kaiser Family Foundation, as of July 5, at least 1.6 million people have lost their Medicaid coverage and 71% of people who lost their coverage did so because individuals could not be located, failure to respond to notices, and other procedural issues. These numbers suggest serious problems with notices and renewal forms getting to enrollees, inadequate public education campaigns, and insufficient consumer support for individuals trying to renew their coverage. Press reports confirm these same issues.
As you know, under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can require corrective action plans for states that do not meet federal requirements for redeterminations and suspend terminations for procedural reasons and impose civil monetary penalties if those actions plans are not submitted or implemented. On May 31, 2023, many of our organizations wrote to Secretary Becerra asking him to use this authority to immediately pause redeterminations in states with high procedural termination rates.
Since that time, the number of states reporting alarming data has only grown, as have our concerns about coverage losses amongst the people we represent. Patients with serious and chronic health conditions cannot afford gaps in their access to care while states continue to resolve these major issues. Our organizations urge the Administration to use all of the enforcement tools at its disposal, per Congress’s design, and to begin those processes, where appropriate, as soon as possible. It is critical that this Administration make clear that it has the authority to take action and immediately uses this authority to protect patients’ access to care, sending a strong message to all states about the importance of this mater.
This Administration has made significant progress in increasing access to quality and affordable healthcare coverage over the past three years and unless significant action is taken, the unwinding process could reverse that progress. Our organizations once again urge the Administration to take immediate action to protect Medicaid coverage for patients in states with high procedural termination rates.