Computer systems in 30 states incorrectly dropped all household members from Medicaid eligibility if one person in the household was no longer eligible. Instead of reviewing each household member separately, many children and people with disabilities wrongfully lost coverage. This is an ongoing issue and states are working to reinstate those who were wrongly dropped.

Automatic Medicaid renewals were put into effect during COVID-19. This means that no one was dropped from coverage, and yearly renewals were not necessary.

The yearly Medicaid renewal requirement was reinstated for some states as early as February 2023. That means people now need to renew their coverage annually and can be dropped from coverage if they are no longer eligible.

States can use computerized systems to determine someone's eligibility through government databases and renew them if they meet requirements.

The “glitch” was due to the system flagging an entire household if one person was not eligible, instead of evaluating each household member individually. Letters were then sent to the household asking them to verify information; if no response was received, everyone in that household was dropped.

Children have more generous eligibility requirements and make up a large percentage of people who wrongfully lost coverage. Other people affected include people with disabilities.

This system error happened in 30 states, and officials are working on reinstating people who were wrongfully dropped and have paused the computer renewals until they fix the system error.

This is an ongoing issue, and we are still learning the exact numbers of how many people were affected. More information on estimates of people affected by state can be found here.

We are still learning how long it will take people who wrongfully lost coverage to be reinstated.