CMS Presses States on Immigration Status Checks, Prompting Concerns Over Duplication and Burden

A recent article published by Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), reports that CMS has ordered states to investigate whether their Medicaid programs are providing benefits to individuals whose immigration status renders them legally ineligible. Medicaid is only available to U.S. citizens and some lawfully present immigrants. In August, CMS began sending state Medicaid agencies the names of enrollees who it suspected may be ineligible, requesting verification of such individuals’ immigration status. Some states have objected to CMS’s demands, claiming that the federal government’s projected figures of ineligible recipients are overstated for several reasons, including misidentification, and that these latest efforts are duplicative of eligibility verification processes already in place, not to mention inadvertently excluding eligible individuals due to such administrative challenges as missing paperwork.