Since the end of the pandemic, Nevada’s Medicaid program no longer offers ongoing coverage for tens of thousands of people, they will no longer have health insurance.
70,000 Nevadans who didn’t know they were no longer qualified have been getting messages from Nevada Health Link, the state’s health insurance exchange.
Katie Charleson, Communications Officer for Nevada Health Link, told KVVU TV in Las Vegas, “We can now text people who were transferred to us from Medicaid and let them know that they can come over to Nevada Health Link to stay insured now that you no longer qualify for Medicaid and have lost your coverage.”
Text messages were sent out on Monday, and now Nevadans who don’t have insurance will need to sign up for new insurance in order to stay covered. You can apply until November.
Charleson says that 90% of people who lost their insurance are eligible for discounts, which makes insurance cheaper than it used to be. A lot of people could get rates that are free or pay less than $200 a month for their whole family.
Louise Norris, a health policy researcher for healthinsurance.org, says that Nevada’s net enrollment dropped by 4%, but it’s still a lot less than in other states. Ninety-three percent of people in Nevada were taken off of coverage because the state didn’t have enough information to know if they were qualified. This was one of the highest rates of procedural disenrollments.
“This is problematic, as some people who have lost coverage may still be eligible, but experiencing problems with accessing care until they can get re-enrolled,” said Norris.
“Some people might find that they’re still eligible for Medicaid despite a procedural disenrollment, and Nevada Health Link will be able to direct them back to Medicaid if they’re eligible to re-enroll.”
A problem all over the country
Millions of Americans across the country have lost their health insurance because of the process of ending Medicaid that started this year. The policy went against the previous advice from the time of the pandemic that said people could stay on their Medicaid plans without having to reapply.
A new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation says that at least 19.6 million Medicaid recipients were taken off their plans. This is 30% of the people who have signed up since Medicaid started to wind down.
It usually came down to how many people already lived in each state when it came to the number of people who dropped out.
This list shows the 10 states with the most people dropping out of Medicaid. They are: Texas (2.1 million), California (1.6 million), Florida (1.4 million), New York (1.4 million), Pennsylvania (848,000), Massachusetts (750,000), Ohio (707,000), Oklahoma (690,000), Michigan (687,000), and Arizona (611,000).
“Since their Medicaid populations are so large, it makes sense that they also have the highest number of disenrollments during the unwinding period,” said Norris. “The number of eligibility redeterminations they’re processing each month is higher than some states’ total Medicaid enrollment.”
Most of the people who were kicked off of Medicaid did so because they missed a deadline or gave the wrong address when they changed it. The KFF found that this group made up about 69% of those who were taken away.
