Several hundred Wrangell residents who receive Medicaid benefits should make sure the state has their current address and all the information needed to verify their eligibility.
The state of Alaska — same as all the states — is reviewing its Medicaid rolls to ensure that everyone still qualifies for the government-funded free health care program. It’s required now that the federally declared COVID-19 public health emergency has ended. During the pandemic, millions were added to Medicaid, and annual eligibility reviews were suspended for millions more after Congress and two presidents decided it was in the nation’s best interest to keep people healthy.
The Alaska Division of Public Assistance is working its way through more than a quarter-million eligibility redeterminations. Already since April, the number of Alaskans covered by Medicaid has dropped by more than 14,000, down to about 250,000 as of the end of July.
Some lost coverage because their household income is too high, but the state reports that nearly 30% of those 14,000 lost their coverage because of missing paperwork. The federal government, which pays most of the cost of the state-run Medicaid programs, says the high rates of rejection nationwide indicate that people aren’t receiving renewal notices or cannot understand them, or are unable to submit the correct paperwork.
In Wrangell, almost 500 households received Medicaid coverage last year, double the number from 2015. Unless they have voluntarily dropped out of the program, they will need to make sure the Public Assistance Division has their current information to determine eligibility. The division sent reminder cards to every Medicaid recipient in Alaska in April, but it appears some people around the state ignored the card. Or maybe they moved, did not update their address with the state and never received the notice.
Wrangell needs to be careful not to repeat the community’s low response rate to the U.S. Census Bureau a few years ago, when just 42% of residents completed and returned the census questionnaires — far below the statewide average of 55% and even further below other Southeast towns that hit 70%.
The low response rate likely contributed to the Census Bureau marking down Wrangell for a 10% drop in population between 2010 and 2020, costing the town over the next decade a lot of state and federal money handed out on a population basis.
Anyone can easily check and update their Medicaid address and eligibility information: Call 833-441-1870, or go online at health.alaska.gov/dpa and click on the big Medicaid Renewals button in the middle of the page.
Losing Medicaid coverage for failure to keep information up to date is not a healthy choice.
— Wrangell Sentinel
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