Michigan said it would pause Medicaid disenrollments through July, and more states could follow, The Washington Post reported June 29.
On June 22, Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services said it would not disenroll anyone with Medicaid renewal paperwork due June 30 until the end of July.
Around 10 states are interested in taking similar actions, Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, told the Post.
CMS recently implemented several additional flexibilities for states aimed at reducing the number of procedural Medicaid disenrollments. A CMS spokesperson told the Post several states have taken advantage of these new options, which include the one-month pause in Michigan.
Some states began terminating coverage for ineligible Medicaid recipients in April after continuous coverage requirements in place during the COVID-19 public health emergency ended. Another 22 states began disenrollments in June, and every state except for Oregon will have started terminating coverage by July.
The majority of people removed from Medicaid were disenrolled because they did not return required paperwork, the state could not contact them, or other procedural reasons, rather than having too much income to qualify for the program.
As of June 27, more than 1.5 million people had been disenrolled from Medicaid nationwide. According to KFF, 73 percent of these disenrollments were for procedural reasons.