Georgia removes 95,000 as it determines Medicaid eligibility | Georgia

(The Center Square) — State officers have got rid of greater than 95,000 from Georgia’s Medicaid rolls, however one Georgia crew says the transfer simply returns this system to how it was once administered for its first 50 years.

State officers mentioned that of the 95,578 who misplaced protection, 89,168 had been got rid of on account of “a lack of information received … to make an eligibility determination.” The state indicated it has information that greater than 20,000 of the ones “procedurally terminated” do not have been eligible for an extension.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which Congress handed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, required Medicaid systems to stay folks enrolled throughout the finish of the general public well being emergency, which ended in May. The federal spending invoice Congress handed in December required states to check Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program eligibility between April and May 2024.

“What we’re really talking about now is going back to the way Medicaid worked for the first five-plus decades of its existence, which is, you have to prove you’re eligible for the program, and then if you’re no longer eligible for the program, you don’t get it anymore,” Kyle Wingfield, president and CEO of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, informed The Center Square. “And the states which administer the program are responsible for doing that. So that’s the bottom line of what we’re really talking about here.”

The state is figuring out eligibility for all 2.7 million Georgians who obtain Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids as a part of the “unwinding” procedure, and in June, Georgia officers mentioned the state initiated renewals for 216,991 folks. In addition to the 95,578 who misplaced protection, 64,423 had been renewed for Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids protection, and 56,990 retain protection whilst the state determines their eligibility.

“We don’t want to remove people who are still eligible,” Wingfield mentioned. “We don’t want it to be for some sort of administrative or bureaucratic paperwork reason. People who are eligible should remain on the program, but we’re talking about people who are not eligible.”