Medicaid unwinding deals a blow to a tenuous system of care for Native Americans – By Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez (KFF Health News) / May 20, 2024
Native Americans are proving particularly vulnerable to losing coverage and face greater obstacles to re-enrolling in Medicaid or finding other coverage.
About a year into the process of redetermining Medicaid eligibility after the COVID-19 public health emergency, more than 20 million people nationwide have been kicked off the joint federal-state program for low-income families.
A chorus of stories recount the ways the unwinding has upended people’s lives, but Native Americans are proving particularly vulnerable to losing coverage and face greater obstacles to re-enrolling in Medicaid or finding other coverage.
“From my perspective, it did not work how it should,” said Kristin Melli, a pediatric nurse practitioner in rural Kalispell, who also provides telehealth services to tribal members on the Fort Peck Reservation.
The redetermination process has compounded long-existing problems people on the reservation face when seeking care, she said. She saw several patients who were still eligible for benefits disenrolled. And a rise in uninsured tribal members undercuts their health systems, threatening the already tenuous access to care in Native communities.
