Medicaid Expansion

With nearly all states having completed the Medicaid “unwinding process” that shed millions of people from the rolls, a new analysis notes that total Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment is actually higher than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. One expert tells AIS Health that private insurers helped conduct crucial outreach to ensure people losing coverage could get insured elsewhere — although Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) still are grappling with the financial consequences of the unwinding.

The unwinding process began in April 2023 after the end of the continuous enrollment provision in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. This provision was enacted due to the COVID-19 public health emergency to ensure that no one covered by Medicaid lost their insurance — even if a change in income rendered individuals ineligible. Enrollment had reached an all-time high of 94 million when unwinding began, up from 71 million in February 2020.

Uninsured rates among Black, Latino, Asian and Native American communities plummeted from 2010 to 2022, as more people gained health care coverage through federal health care programs and employer-sponsored plans, according to reports released by HHS.

The uninsured rate for Black Americans under age 65 dropped from 20.9% to 10.8% between 2010 and 2022, and the rate dropped from 32.7% to 18.0% for Latino Americans during that time. Meanwhile, the uninsured rate went from 16.6% to 6.2% for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI), and from 32.4% to 19.9% for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN).

Walmart Inc. announced on April 30 that it is closing its 51 health centers in five states as well as its virtual care offering. The company said in a press release that it had determined “there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue” with its Walmart Health and Walmart Health Virtual Care centers and added that “the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that makes the care business unsustainable for us at this time.” Walmart launched the clinics in 2019. The company will continue to operate its nearly 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 vision centers.

UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty testified before the Senate Finance Committee and House Energy & Commerce Committe on May 1 about the cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a UnitedHealth subsidiary. Fierce Healthcare reported that Witty said much of Change’s data was stored in data centers rather than on the cloud and that hackers accessed a server that did not have two-factor authentication. Fierce also noted that several politicians criticized UnitedHealth for its massive vertical integration, noting it owns a PBM and is a major player in health care delivery. Axios reported that UnitedHealth “could face more regulation or even calls to divest some of its businesses in the fallout from the hack.” Last month, a bipartisan group of politicians wrote a letter to Witty seeking information about the cyberattack and noted that Change’s systems process about 15 billion transactions each year and are linked to about 900,000 physicians, 118,000 dentists, 33,000 pharmacies and 5,500 hospitals.

CMS on April 2 finalized the 2025 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for Affordable Care Act exchange plans. The rule extended the special enrollment period for people with household incomes up to 150% of the federal poverty level to enroll in coverage any month during the year. CMS also attempted to prevent coverage gaps for people switching plans by allowing people to enroll on the first day of the month after they select a plan. In addition, the rule streamlined the process for enrollment on federally facilitated and state-based marketplaces. And beginning in 2027, it will allow states for the first time can add routine adult dental care as an essential health benefit. More than 21 million people enrolled in ACA exchange plans this year.

More than 21.4 million people have signed up or were automatically re-enrolled in Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage during the 2024 open enrollment period, a 31% increase compared to 2023 OEP, according to CMS.

About 16.4 million people enrolled through HealthCare.gov in the 32 states that use that platform, and another 5.1 million enrolled across 18 states and the District of Columbia, which use their own marketplaces. More than 5.2 million people signed up for marketplace coverage for the first time, a 41% increase compared to 3.7 million during the 2023 OEP.

Every state except Maine saw membership growth in 2024, ranging from 0.2% in the District of Columbia to 80.2% in West Virginia. From 2023 to 2024, 44 of the 51 states reported signup increases of at least 10%, and seven states saw surges of more than 50%. Compared to 2021, marketplace enrollment increased over 150% in six states: Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

After merger talks fizzled in September, Elevance Health, Inc.’s agreement to acquire Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is back on, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The companies had put the $2.5 billion deal on hold due to rising opposition, but the Times-Picayune reported the companies filed a new application on Dec. 14 with the Louisiana Dept. of Insurance. The structure of the deal is largely unchanged, although the companies agreed to expand the board of directors for the Accelerate Louisiana Initiative, a nonprofit foundation. The companies expect the transaction will close during the first quarter of 2024.

More than 19 million people have signed up for coverage via Affordable Care Act exchange plans for next year, according to the most recent data from CMS. The enrollment figures are as of Dec. 15 for the 32 states that use the HealthCare.gov website and through Dec. 9 for the 18 states and Washington. D.C., that have state-based marketplaces. More than 15.3 million had signed up for plans in states using the HealthCare.gov platform, a 33% increase from last year. In addition, more than 745,000 people signed up on Dec. 15, the largest single-day record since HealthCare.gov launched on Oct. 1, 2013.

States received more than $117 billion in enhanced federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic’s Medicaid disenrollment pause, according to a new KFF analysis. With unemployment on the rise during the pandemic, Medicaid rolls surged, but state spending did not. States spent $231 billion on Medicaid in 2019; that figure dropped to $214 billion in 2020, KFF reported. Since then, state spending has yet to surpass 2019 levels. That’s because the federal government elected to increase the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) by 6.2 percentage points in exchange for states’ suspension of eligibility redeterminations for the duration of the Public Health Emergency (PHE). But instead of ending the enhanced FMAP funds with the expiration of the PHE, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 allowed for enhanced funding to begin a gradual decrease — to 5 percentage points higher than normal levels in April, 2.5 in June, and 1.5 in October.

Medicaid redeterminations resumed in recent weeks after years of pandemic-related policies that suspended income verification for the safety net health insurance program, and some states — particularly Florida — seem to be moving faster than others to remove beneficiaries from their rolls, prompting a warning from the Biden administration. Experts say that the pace of redeterminations will vary from state to state — and so will redeterminations’ possible negative effect on health equity, which could intensify if states are cavalier or overaggressive with disenrollments.

“We’re looking closely at the Medicaid renewal numbers released by several states today. Keeping eligible people covered is our #1 priority. States need to do their part to keep people from losing coverage due to red tape,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure on Twitter on June 1. The CMS-controlled Twitter account for Medicaid, while retweeting Brooks-LaSure, said that “we are closely monitoring the Medicaid renewal numbers that states are reporting,” and added that “we will continue to work directly with states to help keep eligible individuals covered.”

A recently introduced bipartisan bill seeks to reduce Medicare Advantage plan overpayments by eliminating financial incentives to “upcode,” or make beneficiaries appear sicker than they may be in the name of higher Medicare reimbursement. Introduced by Sens. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the No Unreasonable Payments, Coding or Diagnoses for the Elderly (No UPCODE) Act would eliminate those incentives by: developing a risk adjustment model that uses two years of diagnostic data instead of just one year; excluding diagnoses collected from chart reviews and health risk assessments for risk adjustment purposes; and including an adjustment that fully accounts for the impact of coding pattern differences between traditional Medicare and MA.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit accusing The Cigna Group’s Express Scripts, Blue Cross Blue Shield-owned Prime Therapeutics, Humana Pharmacy Solutions and Ascent Health Services of colluding to “illegally drive up drug prices” and push those higher costs onto patients. In a March 27 press release, Yost called PBMs “modern gangsters” who have been “scheming in the shadows to control drug prices on all sides of the market” rather than using their negotiating power to drive down prescription costs, as advertised. The suit accuses the PBMs of multiple violations of the Valentine Act, Ohio’s antitrust law, and was filed in the Delaware County Common Pleas Court. “In the case of Express Scripts, the company added insult to injury when it responded to mounting public criticism of PBMs by forming the ‘group purchasing organization’ Ascent Health Services in 2019 — purportedly to take over the company’s pricing and rebate negotiations with drug manufacturers,” Yost’s press release stated.