PROVIDENCE – So far, 7,000 Rhode Island residents have been removed from Medicaid since April 1, when the state began a renewal process that hadn’t taken place since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in 2020, WPRI-TV CVS 12 reported Friday.
An unprecedented nationwide review of the 84 million Medicaid enrollees began in the spring that requires states to remove people whose incomes are now too high for the federal-state program offered to the poorest Americans.
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Rhode Island has 12 months to complete the renewal process for the more than 350,000 individuals enrolled in Medicaid. The process is being led by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the Department of Human Service and HealthSource RI.
Of the 7,000 that have lost Medicaid coverage, about 1,100 of those people have enrolled in the state-based health exchange, HealthSource RI, where they’re receiving heavily subsidized private insurance called “qualified health plans,” R.I. Medicaid Director Kristin Sousa told WPRI.
State officials told WPRI they are hopeful the remaining 5,900 who do qualify for HealthSource RI, are now getting coverage through employers or other private entities, but currently there’s no way to track what’s happening.
“We do not have the ability to know who went to private insurance outside of the qualified health plans,” Sousa told WPRI.
It’s the first time in three years Medicaid renewals will take place because they were postponed during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s expected that coverage for thousands of people in Rhode Island – and millions more nationwide – will be disrupted. Medicaid recipients had to provide information each year showing they still qualify for the program prior to the pandemic.
State leaders estimated in March that 25,000 to 30,000 Rhode Islanders would lose Medicaid coverage during re-enrollment, about 8% of those currently enrolled. Other estimates have 60,000 losing Medicaid coverage, pushing the state’s uninsured rate up from its current 2.9% to somewhere closer to its pre-pandemic level of about 4%.
