Medicaid Unwinding Winds Down: What We’ve Learned Wait, remind me… what is Medicaid

States are unwinding? reinstituting normal Medicaid redetermination and renewal processes, which were paused during the height of the COVID- Medicaid unwinding refers to the end of 19 pandemic. [...] The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the Medicaid program, had to balance the need to provide support to state Medicaid programs as they tackle waves of renewals while also holding the line on enforcement of consumer protections. [...] One of the primary worries of Medicaid advocates going into the unwinding was that for a variety of reasons— including changes of addresses over the course of the pandemic, reduced familiarity with the renewal process, and communication challenges for people with disabilities or limited English proficiency (LEP)—many enrollees would not complete the renewal process and would lose Medicaid coverage. [...] The same KFF survey reported that as of the time of the survey (April 2024), nearly a quarter of respondents who lost Medicaid coverage over the course of the unwinding did not find other coverage. [...] Bringing down the uninsured rate remains a key policy priority, and the bump in uninsured due to the unwinding has underscored both the need for Medicaid expansion in every state and the need to make the enhanced PTCs permanent.