California feared pandemic would overwhelm Medicaid, but that hasn’t happened. Why?

The predictions were dire: Coronavirus lockdowns would put millions of Americans out of work, stripping them of their health insurance and pushing them into Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people. “We are talking about life-or-death services, so to say I’m frustrated is putting it mildly,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and leads budget negotiations in the upper house. “It’s irritating to me that they can be so off.” Politics As millions lose health insurance, Trump administration offers little help The administration has taken few steps to help people gain coverage after massive job losses caused millions to lose their plans amid the coronavirus. The Trump administration’s “public charge” policy may be having an outsize impact on Medi-Cal enrollment because of the state’s large immigrant population, said Hamutal Bernstein, a researcher at the Urban Institute. But “a lot of people are afraid of getting any kind of help.” Federal rules also prevent the state from kicking anyone off Medicaid during the pandemic, which means people who normally would have fallen off the program will stay enrolled, contributing to the state’s inflated projections, Williams said.