Chiquita Brooks-LaSure testifies before the Senate Finance Committee during her nomination hearing to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in Washington on Thursday, April 15, 2021.
Caroline Brehman | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The Biden administration on Thursday called on corporations to assist keep their employees insured as thousands and thousands of individuals across the U.S. suddenly coverage through Medicaid.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told employers in a letter that employees who’ve lost Medicaid coverage ought to be allowed to enroll in group health plans at any time over the following yr via a special enrollment period.
related investing news
Firms are required to offer employees a minimum of 60 days to enroll of their group health plans. Brooks-LaSure said, nonetheless, this is not enough time given what number of persons are suddenly losing Medicaid coverage.
Greater than 3 million people have lost Medicaid since April, when coverage protections that Congress put in place in the course of the Covid-19 public health emergency expired, in accordance with KFF, a nonprofit that researches health issues.
Medicaid is the medical health insurance program for lower income individuals. This system is heavily financed by the federal government but is basically administered by the states.
Congress had barred states from disenrolling people from Medicaid in the course of the pandemic in exchange for a lift in funding. Medicaid coverage surged to a historic high of greater than 86 million people by March 2023, a 35% increase over February 2020.
With the expiration of those protections, states are actually reviewing people’s eligibility for the primary time in three years and thousands and thousands are losing their medical health insurance because of this.
Many individuals could have missed notices from state agencies that their Medicaid coverage has been terminated, and don’t realize that they aren’t any longer insured until they visit a health care provider, Brooks-LaSure said Thursday.
The Health and Human Services Department has estimated that 3.8 million people who find themselves expected to lose Medicaid coverage are eligible for insurance through an employer. One other 2.7 million people who find themselves expected to lose Medicaid are eligible for subsidized insurance through the Reasonably priced Care Act market places.
CMS has arrange a special enrollment period for people to enroll in subsidized coverage through Reasonably priced Care Act insurance market places through July 2024.
