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Pennsylvania is in the process of restoring Medicaid coverage for 105,000 residents who lost their government-funded health insurance benefits this year because they did not return a form on time or for some other procedural reasons. The coverage terminations happened as Pennsylvania and other states in April resumed checking the eligibility of Medicaid beneficiaries, who qualify based on income level or disability status. The Medicaid review process had been suspended nationwide for three years during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Brubaker, 11/13)

Up to 30 million of the poorest Americans could be purged from the Medicaid program, many the result of error-ridden state reviews that poverty experts say the Biden administration is not doing enough to stop. The projections from the health consulting firm Avalere come as states undertake a sweeping re-evaluation of the 94 million people enrolled in Medicaid, government’s health insurance for the neediest Americans. A host of problems have surfaced across the country, including hours-long phone wait times in Florida, confusing government forms in Arkansas, and children wrongly dropped from coverage in Texas. (Seitz and Hunter, 11/14)

Fewer than 9,000 Marylanders lost Medicaid coverage last month, the lowest number of terminations since April, when the state began discontinuing coverage on a monthly basis in what’s called the “Medicaid unwinding.” (Brown, 11/14)

Milwaukee County is on the verge of ending the practice of demanding that unwed fathers pay back the Medicaid program for the cost of covering the birth of their children. Dane County, which in 2020 stopped going to court to claw back those Medicaid dollars from fathers, is poised to drop pending cases that remain open from before that year. (Gunn, 11/14)

A formula used to set a $1.33 million price tag for medical marijuana license renewals properly carries out state lawmakers’ policy choices, Florida health officials argued as they try to swat down a challenge to the fee. (Kam, 11/13)

Amid population growth and a shortfall of doctors and nurses, the Florida Senate this week will start crafting legislation aimed at expanding access to health care. The Senate Health Policy Committee will hold a workshop Tuesday “to begin the process of fine-tuning ideas, putting pen to paper, and of course, hearing more input from stakeholders,” Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, wrote Thursday in a memo to senators. (11/13)

It’s the position of the National Association of Medical Examiners that all overdose deaths should be autopsied. Specifically, the organization says that “external examination is an inadequate substitute for autopsy for the purposes of detecting and certifying drug caused deaths.” But due to staffing shortages plaguing medical examiner offices nationwide, that’s not happening in New Hampshire. (Barndollar, 11/13)

This year’s soaring death toll has in part been driven by a fentanyl crisis that has led to overdoses among homeless residents, including in months with warmer weather, several officials said. Another problem has been the dispersal of people away from congregate settings such as the former arena shelter and into the streets, where it can be harder to provide services and respond to emergency needs, said Felix Rivera, a member of the Anchorage Assembly who leads the Housing and Homelessness Committee. A year ago, the city had hundreds of people staying at the Sullivan Arena, a complex used for hockey games, concerts and graduations that became an emergency shelter during the coronavirus pandemic. As officials moved to close the shelter this spring, many of the people staying there had no place to go, and political leaders were unable to develop a sufficient alternative plan. (Baker, 11/13)