More Georgians are likely to lose their Medicaid coverage

Nearly 600,000 Georgians have lost their Medicaid coverage and more are likely to join them with a few months still to go in the process of requalifying recipients.

Missing paperwork was cited in the cases of 504,000 Georgians now lacking coverage under the state-federal health insurance program for poor children and some poor adults.

Georgia, at 84%, is among the 10 states that saw the largest share of recipients who lost coverage because of missing paperwork, according to the health research organization KFF.

The requalifying of recipients came after the three-year public health emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over that time, no one on Medicaid was required to update their paperwork to show they still qualified. As a result, Georgia’s Medicaid rolls grew to 2.8 million, about a quarter of the state’s population.

The federal government last year asked all states to recertify Medicaid recipients and drop those who no longer qualify or who didn’t complete the required paperwork.

States were given more than a year to do the work, and that deadline is looming. But the task was so big that on Jan. 1 the federal government ordered states to pause the disenrollment of children and to concentrate instead on adults. As of 2019, 56% of Georgia Medicaid enrollees were age 18 or under, according to KFF.

Advocates for patients say the system is complicated and glitchy. Attorneys say they have seen the state lose paperwork they know was sent.

State Department of Community Health spokeswoman Fiona Roberts said some Georgians have obtained other insurance and never reapplied for Medicaid. Roberts couldn’t provide an exact number, but she pointed to KFF data showing that since Medicaid reevaluations began last year, 276,000 Georgians who at some time in their lives had Medicaid have now obtained private health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

SCREENSHOT The Georgia Department of Human Services launched a media campaign letting Medicaid beneficiaries know they must resubmit their paperwork to show they are still eligible for health coverage under the state-federal program for poor and disabled people. Requalifying is required after a 3-year pause.