VISIT STATE HEALTH COMPARE
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SHADAC's Lynn Blewett Featured on 'Hospitals in Focus' Podcast
November 01, 2023:
SHADAC Director Dr. Lynn Blewett was recently invited to join Federation of American Hospitals CEO and President Chip Kahn as a guest on his podcast Hospitals in Focus to share her thoughts on the impacts of the unwinding of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement. The “unwinding” is a term used to describe the progressive ending of the provision included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), that allowed people to remain on Medicaid without needing to go through the re-enrollment process during the COVID-19 epidemic. With the end of this in sight, it’s been projected that millions are now facing either the need to quickly find other coverage or a total loss of coverage due to barriers for re-enrollment.
In the episode, Dr. Blewett discusses this very large change that’s occurring across the U.S. healthcare system. As of April 1, 2023, “States have started to redetermine all of the people on their programs to make sure they’re eligible,” she says, and “a new analysis shows that 500,000 people across eleven states have already dropped off Medicaid.” The podcast discusses specific cases and lessons that can be learned from states’ experiences - the good and the bad. Dr. Blewett dives into the different states’ methods for approaching the re-enrollment process, and how certain methods and diligence will affect any potential for procedural errors during this tumultuous period. There are also some states who are deciding to reinstate certain work requirements for people on Medicaid, which Blewett says “haven’t worked very well,” pointing out that: “There’s an estimate that 8 out of 10 Medicaid recipients who are not blind, disabled, or are able to work, already work. They either work part-time or full-time, and so you’re really targeting a very small number of people.”
In addition to the primary concern of people losing access to healthcare, there are many practical reasons that keeping populations on Medicaid actually helps state economies. To close out the discussion, Dr. Blewett highlights the financial impact that the unwinding could have on certain hospitals who were previously being compensated by the federal support that was coming from the increased number of Medicaid enrollees.
