Nearly 30,000 Vermonters have lost Medicaid coverage in the past 8 months

By Peter D’Auria/VTDigger

In 2022, Erin Kellar was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Kellar had enrolled in Vermont’s Medicaid health insurance program as a graduate student, and was able to stay in the program while she began her career as a therapist. 

Medicaid helped pay for treatment for her diabetes, which requires rapid-acting insulin, long-acting insulin and a glucose meter. She also requires thyroid medication and treatment for other autoimmune conditions. 

But last year, the state determined that her income — about $40,000 a year — made her ineligible for the program. Since then, she’s paid out-of-pocket for a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont plan — one that eats up roughly a quarter of her total income.  

“I’m constantly fearful of, are they going to raise the costs? And I’m powerless to it,” Kellar said. Without insurance, she said, “I would die.”

Submitted

Kellar is one of thousands of Vermonters who have lost coverage through Medicaid, a state-run government program that provides health insurance to low-income Americans, since last spring. 

Between April and December of last year, 27,984 Vermonters have lost Medicaid coverage, according to data reports submitted to the federal government by the Dept. of Vermont Health Access. The losses come as millions of Americans are being disenrolled after pandemic-era protections come to an end.

What happened to Vermont’s pandemic-era Medicaid recipients during the renewal process? Of the 96,956 Medicaid renewal applications processed from May 2023 to December 2023, after pandemic-era rules about Medicaid eligibility expired:

Successfully renewed: 61,123 (61%)

Renewal being processed: 12,271 (12%)

Denied for procedural reasons: 20,152 ineligibility: 7,832 (27% total)

Usually, states undergo an annual process in which they check whether residents enrolled in Medicaid fit the household income requirements for the program, and remove those who don’t.

But in 2020, Congress offered states money to keep Medicaid patients enrolled in the program, meaning that millions of people were able to maintain their health insurance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

After that provision expired last spring, states began trimming Medicaid rolls for the first time since 2019. Nationwide, nearly 14 million people have lost Medicaid coverage during this process, according to the health policy think tank, KFF.

‘People shouldn’t have to choose’

As Vermonters grapple with burgeoning health care costs, advocates, including Kellar, have urged lawmakers and Gov. Phil Scott’s administration to stop removing Vermonters from Medicaid. 

On Friday, Jan. 12 — the same day as a raucous State House rally against the Medicaid removals — Vermont lawmakers announced a sweeping proposal to expand Medicaid access in the state.

Currently, Vermont adults who make up to 133% of the federal poverty level are eligible for Medicaid. Children are eligible if their families makes up to 312% of the poverty level, and pregnant people with incomes up to 208% of the poverty level are eligible.

If passed, the bill,, would gradually raise the limit for adults to 312% of the federal poverty level by 2030. Currently, the federal poverty level for one person is $15,060 and $31,200 for a family of four.