Health advocates in a virtual press conference on Tuesday called for Gov. Ron DeSantis to pause Medicaid redeterminations after about 250,000 Floridians lost coverage.
The Florida Department of Children and Families removed these residents during an evaluation of eligibility that typically takes place annually, but had been paused nationwide for over three years due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. This pause ended April 1.
A May 9 report from the Florida Department of Children and Families to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services indicates around 80% of those terminated — approximately 205,000 — may have been eligible but lost coverage due to procedural reasons, such as failing to respond to requests for updated information.
“When governors see such large numbers of terminations of coverage for procedural reasons … they should pause the process and see what is going wrong,”