Thanks to pandemic-era policies, taxpayers foot the bill for some five million people who have enrolled in employer plans.
American taxpayers have been sending more than $6 billion a month to insurance companies for services provided under Medicaid to people who are ineligible—often because they’re enrolled in a private health plan. The Biden administration is pushing the boundaries of law and credulity by pressuring states to continue making these payments to insurers.
Medicaid is a joint federal-state welfare program originally intended to finance healthcare for the needy, but it has expanded significantly in recent decades. Federal Covid-19 policies caused enrollment to surge by about 20 million as states stopped reviewing enrollees’ eligibility when the pandemic hit. Many enrollees are now ineligible. They now make too much money, have access to employer coverage, have moved out of state, or have died. They should be removed from Medicaid.
As states begin eligibility redeterminations and removals of ineligible enrollees, left-leaning media is attempting to delegitimize these state efforts by claiming anyone who is disenrolled for failing to respond to a renewal application is having his coverage taken away for “procedural” reasons. This is misleading, even deceitful.
