More than one quarter of the enrollees on a major health plan in Florida have been rolled off the program in two years, according to data by KFF, a nonprofit health policy research and news organization.
Around 1.4 million Americans have been disenrolled from Medicaid in the state as part of the unwinding process happening nationwide after Medicaid coverage was expanded following the COVID pandemic.
Florida Department of Children and Families told Newsweek, “Individuals who are determined to no longer qualify for Medicaid are educated on the other health care options available to them, including those found within Florida Healthy Kids.”
“For any child deemed ineligible for Medicaid coverage, Florida Healthy Kids proactively reaches out directly to the family to provide these options,” the spokesperson continued.
They added that recipients who “fail to submit a redetermination timely” have an additional 90 days to submit a late application.
“If they are determined to be eligible, their coverage is reinstated retroactively to their closure date to ensure there is no gap in coverage,” the spokesperson said.
Why It Matters
There has been growing concern in recent months about how high levels of uninsured Americans could impact health outcomes and medical costs. While some of those rolled off the program as part of the COVID unwinding process may have access to private plans through their employment, others could be left stranded.
Experts have warned that this could result in those Americans avoiding seeking necessary medical care, driving up emergency room visits and medical costs, as well as worsening chronic health and mental health conditions across the country.
File photo: A doctor operates a CT scan.
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What To Know
To help support more Americans cover their health insurance during the COVID pandemic, some states expanded access to Medicaid, the federal health program for those with limited income and resources.
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more Americans were added to the program, causing nationwide enrollment levels to increase.
In the wake of the pandemic, states were forced to keep Medicaid recipients on the program, regardless of changes to eligibility, until the requirements expired in March 2023.
From March 2023 onward, states began the “unwinding” process, where more and more Medicaid recipients were removed from the program, driven by both eligibility losses and procedural disenrollments.
In Florida, there were 5,088,076 covered by Medicaid in March 2023, but by March 2025, that number was 3,735,641, KFF data shows.
This marks a change of roughly 1.4 million, a rate of decline faster than in other highly populated states like California and New York—although Texas saw a larger drop in those insured by Medicaid, of around 1.8 million.
The number of people with Medicaid coverage is now just higher than February 2020 levels, a difference of 4 percent, but the drop in the two-year window between 2023 and 2025 shows around 27 percent of those recipients were disenrolled from the program.
Variations in the rates at which states disenroll Medicaid recipients are down to many factors, one being how successful they were in avoiding “procedural terminations,” William Schpero, a professor of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine, told Newsweek.
“Procedural terminations” refer to the loss of coverage among individuals “who technically maintained eligibility, but whose coverage was dropped because the state did not have access to information they needed to definitively confirm eligibility,” he said.
He said that such terminations may happen if, for example, “an enrollee did not receive a required renewal form due to a change in address.”
“Many states attempted to mitigate procedural terminations by conducting ex parte, or automated, renewals, for which enrollees did not have to take any action to maintain coverage,” Schpero said. “Some of the states with higher rates of enrollment losses also had lower rates of ex parte renewals.”
The concern is that many of those rolled off the program may now be left without access to affordable health insurance.
“We know that many of those who have lost Medicaid will not have access to affordable alternative sources of coverage,” Schpero said.
Loss of Medicaid coverage has been “associated with increased financial strain as patients are hit with medical bills they are unable to afford,” he added.
What People Are Saying
William Schpero, a professor of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine, told Newsweek: “Steeper losses of coverage are always concerning for two principal reasons. First, it may suggest a large portion of enrollees losing coverage actually remain eligible for the program—they are losing coverage for purely administrative reasons, like a missed renewal form in the mail. Second, many of those losing coverage likely do not have access to alternative sources of health insurance, meaning they will become uninsured.”
He added: “In addition, we would expect spillover effects for the safety-net providers that disproportionately provide care for low-income populations: as the share of patients served by these health systems without insurance increases, they will be forced to take on higher amounts of uncompensated care. This will increase their financial precarity in advance of significant cuts to Medicaid that will soon be implemented under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
Florida Department of Children and Families told Newsweek: “In 2023, when states began the process of returning to normal Medicaid redetermination processing, Florida completed robust outreach to individuals to ensure eligible recipients had the necessary supports they needed to complete the required process. This included an extensive public outreach campaign utilizing multiple channels of communication as well as enhancements to supporting tools to improve the end user experience. At the time, these efforts and others, resulted in a response rate that nearly doubled those of pre-pandemic rates.”
What Happens Next
As the unwinding continues, more reductions in enrollment are expected in the state and across the country. With millions already having lost health coverage, concerns remain about access to care for low-income individuals and families.
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