By Ernie Mundell HealthDay Reporter<\/b><\/p>\n
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FRIDAY, April 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Nearly a quarter of Americans who lost their pandemic-era Medicaid coverage say they’re now without any health insurance, a new survey finds. <\/p>\n
More than half (54%) of these currently uninsured adults cited cost as the reason keeping them from having coverage.<\/p>\n
The survey<\/a> of 1,227 adults was conducted this February and March by KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation). It included people who said they had Medicaid coverage in early 2023 — prior to the repeal of pandemic-era eligibility rules on April 1, 2023.<\/p>\n About one in five (19%) of all people who had been on Medicaid in early 2023 were disenrolled at some point later that year, the survey found. <\/p>\n Seventy percent of that group said they subsequently went through a temporary period of being uninsured. <\/p>\n Most did eventually gain insurance: Forty-seven percent managed to re-apply and get reinstated on Medicaid, while another 28% said they found insurance via their work, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act s marketplace or military-based health care. <\/p>\n More than a third of people who sought to regain some kind of coverage said they found the process difficult, the survey found, and nearly half (48%) called it stressful.<\/p>\n Long phone call wait times, excessive paperwork and trouble figuring out what paperwork was needed were common complaints.<\/p>\n Speaking to CBS News<\/em>, Kate McEvoy<\/a>, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said that millions of people are currently being redetermined for eligibility, and that has swamped some state call centers.<\/p>\n According to McEvoy, states did try to reach out to enrollees prior to the post-pandemic changes in eligibility, using media campaigns, texts, emails, and apps. <\/p>\n However, “until the moment your coverage is at stake, it’s hard to penetrate people’s busy lives,” she said.<\/p>\n Interruptions in coverage can have an almost immediate impact on health: More than half (56%) of those polled by KFF said they’d missed needed health care or skipped prescriptions as they waited to regain coverage.<\/p>\n Among people who have found a form of health insurance other than Medicaid, worries around cost remain. <\/p>\n More than three-quarters (76%) of people with insurance say “they are worried about affording the cost of health care services,” according to a KFF news release. Only 47% of people who retained Medicaid felt the same.<\/p>\n More information<\/strong><\/p>\n Find out how you can help maintain your coverage at medicaid.gov<\/a><\/p>\n