200,000 Oklahomans Could Lose Health Care Coverage Through SoonerCare

TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — With the pandemic, the Oklahoma Healthcare Authority added a rule to SoonerCare to ensure people wouldn’t lose coverage during a crisis.

People who are in the program and become ineligible stay in until the health emergency is over.

“Here we are looking at the likelihood of an expiration of the public health emergency probably within the next 90 days,” said Kevin Corbett, CEO of the OHA.

According to estimates from the Healthcare Authority, 200,000 Oklahomans will lose coverage when the emergency declaration expires.

“For most of them, it appears that they are now over the income threshold that’s required to be a member of SoonerCare, some substantially, their circumstances have changed, hopefully for the better,” said Corbett.

OHA is preparing for those people to lose SoonerCare and enroll in a new insurance provider.

“We will take a process to make sure that we do the disenrollment, if you want to call it that, with a level of compassion and thoughtfulness to make sure we have the ability to point those members to other alternatives for health care,” said Corbett.

If you’re on SoonerCare and think you could lose it, OHA is asking you to update your online information.

“Some of the eligibility is on the basis of income, but there may be some documentation needed and we want to make sure we don’t disenroll someone simply because we have a lack of engagement or lack of communication with those folks,” said Corbett.