The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), UnidosUS, and nine other leading civil rights organizations released a report detailing how the United States is suffering an avoidable civil rights and health equity disaster, six months after the cancellation of pandemic-era Medicaid continued eligibility requirements.
At a press conference, Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, noted how the health care system has failed the most vulnerable people for years, until the COVID-19 pandemic brought medical needs to the forefront.
“It is a sad reality that it took a global pandemic for our nation’s elected leaders to expand life-saving health care services to hard-working Americans. The fact is that our health care system has long failed the most vulnerable,” Johnson said.
She said the data in the report “is further proof that the Medicaid disenrollment process is riddled with racism.”
“We will not stand by as millions within our community are once again left without a lifeline. We are proud to stand with UnidosUS and other leading civil rights organizations in urging an immediate pause on all Medicaid disenrollments.”
In that regard, she stressed that state leaders must do everything possible to re-enroll those who have lost coverage, by leveraging available data to verify eligibility or by providing easily accessible support to complete the paperwork necessary to confirm eligibility.
The disenrollment has led to the deepest and steepest Medicaid decline in history, with nearly 8 million people losing coverage in just six months, he noted.
Additionally, the report found that three-quarters of people who lost coverage were fired for procedural reasons, most often due to simple paperwork issues.
As a result of this research, civil rights organizations are calling on states to suspend expungements until a new process is implemented that would dramatically reduce expungement rates.
While few states have shared disenrollment data by race and ethnicity, based on known demographic characteristics of Medicaid beneficiaries in each state, at least 54 percent of beneficiaries who have lost Medicaid are people of color, the analysis found.
The report's findings also showed that disenrollment has caused more children to lose Medicaid coverage than ever before.
The NAACP co-authored the report with the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Council of Black Women, the National Urban League, the National Urban Indian Health Council, the Southern Poverty Law Center and UnidosUS, and the Coalition on Human Needs and Protecting Our Care.
The report can be consulted by clicking Click here.
You may be interested in: California adds $144 million to organizations that provide Medi-Cal services
