NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nearly 300,000 Tennesseans who enrolled in Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to lose their coverage this year now that state officials are once again allowed to bump people from the government-funded health insurance program.
A spokesperson for TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, said this week that no removals will occur until April 1, though she said in an email that the “redetermination process” will begin in March.
“Once we complete the federally and state required redetermination process, we expect to return to normal enrollment which was 1.4 million members and trending downward,” Amy Lawrence said via email. “Currently we serve above 1.7 million members.”
Across the U.S., state officials are preparing to comb through their Medicaid rolls after Congress agreed late last year to sunset a COVID-19 public health emergency requirement that prohibited states from booting people off Medicaid.
As a result, millions are expected to be removed from the program. Under the proposal, the federal government will also wind down extra funds given to states for the added enrollees over the next year.