Nearly 300,000 New Jersey residents have so far been terminated from NJ FamilyCare, the state’s health insurance program, as the process of determining which members are still eligible to receive health insurance following a years-long pause due to the pandemic, continues.
Of the 296,271 members who lost coverage, 226,423 have lost their health insurance due to procedural reasons such as not completing the required paperwork, according to figures provided by the New Jersey Department of Human Services. The rest were deemed ineligible, mostly for financial reasons.
Approximately 480,409 people, or 37% of the 1,311,959 members re-assessed, had their coverage renewed. NJ FamilyCare still has 758,614 renewals to start.
According to DHS estimates at the beginning of the renewal process, nearly 280,000 of the then 2.29 million members in total, were expected to lose coverage due to ineligibility over the next several months – a number that was already exceeded.
There are currently 2,103,011 residents enrolled, as of November 30 – the seventh month of the 12-month unwinding plan.
The federal government in March 2020 temporarily waived Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) requirements to help prevent people from losing health coverage during the pandemic.
State-run Medicaid programs were required by federal law to restart eligibility reviews by April 1 under the federal FY 2023 Omnibus spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in late December.
They like highlighting the people that got terminated for “procedural” reasons. Probably most of them were not eligible for the program so they didn’t bother sending in the paperwork. (Which is a mistake if it’s mid year, as you can’t get health insurance outside open enrollment unless you get terminated due to financial reasons- failing to renew is not an eligible reason) However, As long as you’ll be terminated during open enrollment, or if you join a healthshare there is no reason to send in your paperwork.