More than 47,000 Illinois residents lose Medicaid as state begins asking recipients to prove eligibility [Chicago Tribune]

More than 47,000 Illinois residents lost Medicaid health insurance coverage this month — joining millions of people across the country losing Medicaid as states ask recipients to prove they’re still eligible for the program, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

In all, 47,625 Illinois residents lost coverage as of Aug. 1, said Jamie Munks, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, in an email.

More Illinois residents are expected to lose coverage in coming months. The people who lost it this month were only among the first group asked to prove they still qualified for Medicaid. The state plans to send letters to new groups of Medicaid recipients each month, asking them to prove their eligibility.

The federal government has estimated that about 700,000 people in Illinois may lose Medicaid coverage by the time the process is complete. The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services is more optimistic, estimating that about 384,000 Illinois residents may lose coverage.

Medicaid is a state and federally funded health insurance program for people with low incomes and disabilities that covered about 3.9 million people in Illinois before this first round of redeterminations.

Of the Illinois residents who lost coverage this month, 13,375 individuals were no longer eligible. Another 34,250 individuals lost Medicaid because they didn’t respond to requests to prove their eligibility or because they didn’t provide the state with all the required information, Munks said.

Another 139,538 people were found to still qualify for Medicaid, and will continue to have Medicaid coverage. The state is still determining whether an additional 13,830 people should stay on Medicaid.

Those who are no longer eligible for Medicaid coverage will be given information about finding other coverage, Munks said. For those who lost Medicaid because they didn’t respond to requests for information, the state can reinstate their Medicaid coverage if they receive the required information within 90 days, she said.

People who lost Medicaid may be able to get insurance through their employers or the Affordable Care Act marketplace, though others may end up without any coverage, if they don’t take action.

It’s no surprise that many people lost Medicaid during this first round of redeterminations, after three years of not having to prove eligibility, said Stephanie Altman, director of healthcare justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago.

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The overall situation is a result of several pandemic-related changes to federal law. Before COVID-19, Illinois residents on Medicaid had to renew their coverage each year, often by filling out paperwork proving they were still eligible for the program.

When the pandemic began, the federal government began giving states extra money to suspend that requirement. People on Medicaid no longer had to periodically prove they still qualified for the program in order to stay on it.

As the pandemic faded last year, federal lawmakers decided continuous enrollment in Medicaid was no longer needed, and they passed a new bill ending that provision on March 31 of this year.

Nationally, 3.8 million people had lost Medicaid as of Aug. 1, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

More to come.

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