AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Concerned employees at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission say Texans are at risk of losing their health insurance due to understaffing, insufficient technology, and “disheartening and unacceptable” leadership, according to an internal email shared with Nexstar.
“These issues are escalating rapidly, and the agency is facing significant risks, including the potential termination of Medicaid coverage for countless individuals and the potential loss of billions of dollars in federal funding,” the group of anonymous employees told Executive Commissioner Cecile Young in a July 25 email.
The concerns stem from changes in Medicaid policies that the employees say have stressed the state system and overburdened their workload.
On April 1, the federal government ended its “continuous coverage provision,” which prevented states from unenrolling Medicaid recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic. That meant Texas needed to review its enrollees — about 6 million people — to determine which are still eligible for coverage.