Lawmakers want more info about Medicaid redeterminations

Health care providers, patient advocates and state lawmakers continue to hammer the administration of Gov. Greg Gianforte for removing more than 120,000 people from state Medicaid programs between April and November of last year, including many residents who say they remain eligible for coverage.

Every state is dealing with the post-pandemic redetermination process, but Montana has one of the highest disenrollment rates in the country, according to a KFF analysis, and 77% of the people who have lost coverage were kicked off because of paperwork issues or lack of a timely response, not because they were deemed ineligible.

In a Jan. 30 letter accompanying a public records request, House Minority Leader Kim Abbott, D-Helena, amplified a monthslong frustration among members of her party and others regarding the state health department’s lack of transparency about those redeterminations. The state’s public-facing dashboard tracking monthly disenrollments does not show the age, race, gender or county of the Montanans who have lost coverage, or the type of Medicaid program from which they were cut.