128K kids in Tennessee cut from low-income Medicaid programs

NASHVILLE — At least 128,000 children in Tennessee have been cut from the state’s low-income health insurance programs over the past two years.

The Tennessean reports that one in every eight children in TennCare were unenrolled between December 2016 and this January. State officials say the purge is due to the programs dropping children who no longer qualify or whose families didn’t respond to mandatory renewal forms.

TennCare officials say “many” were unenrolled over a lack of paperwork, but couldn’t say exactly how many. Advocates say the purge was caused by TennCare procedural errors, but program officials deny that.

The newspaper says initial TennCare data showed an additional 52,000 children were unenrolled in February. The Tennessean says the data was taken offline after officials were questioned and insisted the data was wrong.

Agency officials passionately deny that claim.

“There were humans processing these renewals. And humans do make mistakes,” said Kim Hagan, TennCare director of member services. “But is it systemic? Absolutely not.”