AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Texas Health and Human Services accidentally removed 350 seniors from the state’s Medicare Savings Program, the agency confirmed, costing some lower income Texans as much as $200 a month out of their Social Security checks.
Last summer, Nexstar first reported that about 100,000 Texans were improperly removed from Medicaid coverage after the federal government rolled back COVID-era provisions meant to protect people from losing health insurance.
On April 1, 2023, the Biden administration 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 were still eligible for coverage. The sudden influx led to mistakes that kicked people off their coverage, compounded by alleged understaffing, technology errors, and a “toxic” environment reported by whistleblowers last summer.
Nearly a year later, the Texas HHSC confirmed seniors were also “erroneously removed” from the Medicare Savings Program.
“HHSC routinely performs quality assurance measures,” HHSC’s Tiffany Young told Nexstar. “When, through this process, the agency discovers a Medicaid recipient was terminated in error, HHSC works expeditiously to reinstate coverage for those impacted back to the date of their termination. Coverage has already been reinstated or is in the process of being reinstated for any impacted Medicare Savings Program recipients.”
Source: Texas kicked hundreds of seniors off Medicare benefits by mistake / kxan