Protecting Medicaid means protecting the people who need it

State Rep. Tony Isa, R-Angola, recently wrote that Medicaid reform is about 'protecting the promise we made to Hoosiers.' On that much, we agree. Where we disagree is what keeping that promise looks like. Isa's column focuses heavily on making sure Medicaid covers only people who remain eligible. Certainly it should. No one is arguing that people who no longer qualify should remain on the program indefinitely. But that's not the problem Indiana's own numbers are showing us. Isa acknowledges in his column that 20% to 25% of Hoosiers who were disenrolled after the pandemic re- enrolled within 90 days after providing information the state required. He correctly writes that this demonstrates eligible Hoosiers were being removed because of paperwork and outdated verification systems, rather than because they no longer qualified. That should be the alarm bell. Instead, Isa points to stricter eligibility verification and additional program-integrity measures as evidence that Indiana is solving the problem. But making it harder to remain enrolled doesn't fix a system that's already knocking eligible people off. Recent reporting by the Indiana Capital Chronicle makes the human cost painfully clear. Between March 2025 and June 2026, about 31.9% of Medicaid renewals reviewed by the state were closed for 'noncompliance.' Only 7.7% were closed because the state actually determined that the recipient was ineligible. Those are very different things. 'Noncompliance' can mean the state did not receive a document by a deadline. It can mean a notice never reached the recipient. It can involve confusing correspondence, problems with an online portal or paperwork that was submitted but had not yet been processed. And sometimes people do not even know they have lost their insurance until they are standing at a pharmacy counter trying to fill a prescription. I talk to people dealing with this. They're not trying to cheat the system. Some are sick., or caring for family members. Many struggle with technology or complicated paperwork. Some simply don't have the capacity to keep chasing notices, uploading documents and figuring out what went wrong. For many, navigating a tangle of paperwork, passwords, and online portals becomes a barrier they simply can't overcome. Government can't create a maze and then call people undeserving because they failed to find their way through it. The Indiana Capital Chronicle reported on Hoosiers who postponed doctors' appointments, stretched medications or lost access to specialists while trying to get their coverage restored. Hospitals are seeing the consequences as well, as uninsured patients delay care until their health problems become emergencies. That is not fiscal responsibility. It's shifting the cost. Isa writes that 'every dollar spent on someone who is no longer eligible is a dollar unavailable for a child with medical needs, an aging senior or a person living with a disability.' That statement sounds compelling. But it describes people who are actually ineligible. What about the thousands of Hoosiers who are eligible, lose coverage for procedural reasons and then manage to get it back? Even worse, happens to those Hoosiers who are dropped from coverage and simply give up? Those people include the child with medical needs. They include the aging senior. They include the person living with a disability. If Medicaid is truly a promise to vulnerable Hoosiers, our responsibility can't end with mailing them a form. We should verify eligibility. We should prevent fraud. We should be responsible with taxpayer dollars. But we should also measure success by whether eligible people can actually obtain and keep the health care for which they qualify — not simply by how many names we can remove from the Medicaid rolls. A smaller Medicaid program is not necessarily a better Medicaid program. A better program is one that reaches the people it was created to serve. That's the promise Indiana needs to protect. Judy Rowe, who lives at Lake Pleasant in rural Fremont, is the Democratic candidate for the 51st District in the Indiana House of Representatives.