Medicaid is a health program that serves 90+ million low-income children, pregnant people, adults, seniors, and people with disabilities in the United States. Federal and state governments jointly finance Medicaid, but state governments administer and run the program.

At the start of the COVID pandemic, Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, requiring state Medicaid programs to keep people continuously enrolled through the end of the public health emergency in exchange for enhanced federal funding. In 2022, Congress voted to end the continuous enrollment provision on March 31, 2023.

Now, between 7.8 million and 24.4 million people–including millions of children–could lose coverage as states kick residents off Medicaid. Nearly 5.5 million have already been purged--many erroneously dropped for not filling out paperwork. And now, COVID is on the rise again.

The overwhelming majority of people who have lost coverage in most states were dropped because of technicalities, not because state officials determined they no longer meet Medicaid income limits. This carelessness will impact millions of low-income Americans’ health care access, especially when more and more COVID resources are being inequitably commercialized.

Congress granted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the power to ensure that states are not improperly removing Medicaid beneficiaries. With that oversight comes the ability of the Biden administration to withhold funding from state Medicaid programs if they don’t undertake good-faith efforts to prevent procedural terminations.

President Biden has urged a slowing of the purge to avoid administrative errors. But his administration can do more–publicly identify which states face the most serious issues, use their Congressionally granted power to monitor and oversee the Medicaid processes, and withhold funding from states improperly purging their low-income residents.

Millions of Americans are at risk of losing coverage–it’s time to step in and protect us.

Sign the petition to President Biden: Hold states accountable for rushing and purging millions of low-income Americans from their health insurance coverage.