[Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS)] show 12,484 recipients lost coverage in January, among approximately 542,000 who have been dropped either due to no longer being eligible or for procedural reasons since automatic re-enrollment ended in Michigan in June 2023.
The Detroit News reported that number more than doubled a Michigan House Fiscal Agency (HFA) forecast in January 2023, which anticipated only about 200,000 people would be disenrolled. Meanwhile, according to a November 2023 report, HFA anticipates “a continuing, but tapering, caseload decline as Medicaid cases that would have been closed under normal circumstances are processed, followed by a more gradual decline back to pre-pandemic caseload trends.” That is currently expected to occur by October 2026.
Medicaid enrollees in Michigan had not been required to reapply for coverage for three years after annual renewals were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that changed when Congress in late 2022 passed legislation that ended continuous enrollment on March 31, 2023. Michigan held off disenrollments until June, with annual renewals being staggered to take place monthly through May 2024.