As Florida winds down Medicaid eligibility review, more children under 5 are losing coverage

Overall, more Floridians received Medicaid coverage in February than those who lost it, according to a report the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration published earlier this week. There were 6,912 more Floridians enrolled in Medicaid last month than in January.

That increase is a first since the state started reviewing people’s eligibility for Medicaid after the end of continued coverage under the COVID-19 emergency in April of 2023, according to the monthly reports from AHCA. The state is supposed to finish the review this April.

Since the unwinding process began, 1.3 million Floridians have lost health coverage through the program, according to health policy research center KFF’s nationwide data tracker.

Despite the increase in the number of people enrolled in Medicaid, Florida removed more than 3,000 fewer people from the program, according to the February report. More than half of them, 1,779, were children under five years old.

The rate of Floridians who have lost access to Medicaid for “procedural reasons” is another problem that healthcare advocacy groups and policy researchers have raised concerns about.

The procedural terminations happen when the agency doesn’t have the necessary information or has outdated contact information for the person whose eligibility is being reviewed. According to KFF, 58 percent of people who have lost Medicaid in Florida, did not get their coverage renewed because of procedural reasons.