“A big wrinkle in planning is that it is unclear when that unwinding will begin.

The latest extension of the health emergency runs through mid-April. States are assuming that HHS will continue it, because Biden health officials have promised to give 60 days’ notice before its end, and that has not happened.

The Biden administration has no official forecast of how many people are likely to fall off Medicaid. Tsai and other policy experts cite research by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, that began estimating late last year how many people would lose coverage after the health emergency stops. The latest updates predict that more than 14 million beneficiaries could lose Medicaid if the emergency expires midsummer, and nearly 16 million if it ends early in the fall.”