The number of people on Wisconsin’s government healthcare rolls continues to fall.
The state’s Department of Health Services said for the first six months of 2024, enrollment dropped by over 100,000 people.
Most of those people, however, failed to fill-out their paperwork or made another mistake.
DHS’s numbers show that 91,889 people lost their Medicaid benefits because of a procedural issue. The Department of Health Services said that includes not taking “a required action such as not completing their renewal, not submitting information or verification, or not paying a premium (when required).”
Another 68,361 lost their benefits because they lost their eligibility.
People lose their eligibility each month as DHS renews people for Medicaid in Wisconsin. The state is averaging nearly 200,000 renewals each month. So far, more than a million people in Wisconsin have had the Medicaid eligibility checked or re-checked.
Medicaid enrollment has been on a steady decline in Wisconsin since the end of the COVID-era expansions.
DHS said enrollment peaked in the state back in May of 2023, with just over 1.68 million people receiving Medicaid benefits.
The 1.35 million who were enrolled in Medicaid in Wisconsin in June of this year is 128,000 more than Wisconsin’s Medicaid enrollment pre-COVID.
Wisconsin spends about $15 billion on Medicaid each year.
DHS is not saying when the latest Medicaid enrollment data for the rest of 2024 will be shared.
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