Wyden, Pallone on CMS Actions to Ensure Compliance with Medicaid Eligibility Determinations
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J., released the following joint statement today on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) actions to ensure states are complying with federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) regulations regarding eligibility redeterminations:
“We applaud CMS’s actions to ensure states comply with Medicaid eligibility redetermination requirements and, where they are not, quickly fix those deficiencies. Unfortunately, some states are inappropriately terminating health coverage for Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. This pattern of behavior is unacceptable and unlawful, and it must end.
“We stand ready to continue to work with CMS and the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure Medicaid-eligible Americans—including pregnant women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities—do not face senseless hurdles to getting and keeping their health coverage.”
Pallone and Wyden have consistently called for an end to state policies and practices that result in Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries inappropriately losing their health coverage. Earlier this year, the Democratic Committee leaders wrote to Administrator Brooks-LaSure to urge the agency to require states to commit to concrete plans for coming into full compliance with Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and enrollment requirements. The guidance CMS issued today does just that and is a critical step forward.
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