By: Miriam Delaney Heard and Wayne Turner
Executive Summary
In the last days of the Trump administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized an Interim Final Rule (IFR) that creates exceptions to the Medicaid continuous coverage requirements in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The IFR allows states to reduce benefits and terminate eligibility in certain categories during the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), directly contrary to beneficiary protections Congress put in place. Nearly 150 organizations signed this joint comment letter from the National Health Law Program and Justice in Aging supporting the repeal of the Trump IFR and urging CMS to immediately restore health coverage to thousands of Medicaid enrollees who lost coverage or experienced a reduction in benefits.
