Right, Larry, on WNYC, now we'll do kind of a public service announcement and community

share your experience, call in for people on Medicaid in New York State.

Here's why this is newsworthy right now.

As our Health Reporter Caroline Lewis reminds us, during the height of the pandemic, enrollment

in Medicaid soared, increasing from about 6 million to 8 million New Yorkers, about

half of New York City is on it.

Many people lost income and employment, but gained access to free public health insurance

for the first time.

Now over the past three years, with the COVID public health emergency in place, New York

and other states, stopped requiring people to renew their Medicaid coverage annually,

so patients didn't face any scrutiny over whether they still qualified.

Now that renewal process is starting up again, and state health officials are going to

be auditing the eligibility of millions of New Yorkers on a rolling basis over the next

18 months, and potentially kicking thousands of people off of their current health plant.

They will also be checking eligibility for people on the essential plan and child health

plus, which are other forms of free public health insurance related to Medicaid.

What I've heard is happening already in other states, and I will share a headline about

that from this morning's news with you in a minute, is that people who do qualify to

continue getting Medicaid health insurance are now sometimes losing that coverage.

Why?

Because they don't know that they have to renew and show their eligibility once again.

We don't want that to happen to anybody here.

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