Since April, states across the country have been kicking people off Medicaid, and no state has kicked off more people than Texas. We’re at 1.7 million. And counting.
Some of this is right-sizing. Medicaid is health insurance for low-income households, paid for by both federal and state governments. After several years of pandemic-era protections, people who have aged out or who now earn too much to qualify are no longer covered by the program, and it’s up to the states to sort all that out. Texas is a big state, so it seems logical that our numbers would be high.
But Texas isn’t just removing families for good reasons. More than 858,000 children lost coverage for missing signatures, late paperwork or other procedural reasons — issues that have nothing to do with whether they should qualify or not, kicking out kids whose families might have to decide between an inhaler and dinner, between medication and bills.
Source: Texas kicks kids off Medicaid for paperwork problems. Other states have a fix. / Victoria Advocate