Medicare In Connecticut Is About To Change

 Or more accurately, revert:

A federal pandemic policy that guaranteed Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents is coming to an end.

Typically, people who receive Medicaid, known as HUSKY in Connecticut, go through an annual process to confirm whether they still qualify for the program. But, during the pandemic, the federal government instituted a policy, known as “continuous enrollment,” that prevented states from kicking people off of Medicaid, even if they no longer qualified or failed to update their eligibility information.

But, on March 31, continuous enrollment will end, kicking off a year-long process called “unwinding,” where everyone whose Medicaid coverage has been extended as part of the public health emergency will need to reevaluate their eligibility. In Connecticut, around 434,000 residents have had Medicaid coverage extended at some point over the past three years under the continuous eligibility rules.

“Just the numbers alone make this really challenging,” said Sen. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, who chairs the Human Services Committee.