Mapped: Texans dropped from Medicaid rolls

More than 2 million people have been removed from Texas' Medicaid program since federal pandemic-era coverage protections were lifted last April, new state data shows.

Why it matters: Many people may have unnecessarily lost their health insurance.

• The majority were disenrolled because of procedural issues like failing to return paperwork, not because they were determined ineligible, Axios' Maya Goldman reports.
• Most of them are children.

Zoom in: Included in the 2 million Texans are 180,000 people in the San Antonio area who were removed from Medicaid between April and December last year.

What they're saying "Many people losing Medicaid have a broad range of health and mental health care needs, and without Medicaid or other affordable coverage, they can face severe health and financial consequences," Jennifer Tolbert, who analyzes Medicaid for the health policy research nonprofit KFF, tells Axios.

Zoom out: Texas is the second most populous state and has long had the country's highest uninsured rate, so it's perhaps not surprising that it leads the U.S. in disenrollments.

• But it also has the highest rate of people removed from Medicaid since last year, with 61% of enrollees losing coverage, per KFF.

State of play: Texas is "taking all possible actions to provide benefits to eligible Texans as quickly as possible," Thomas Vazquez, a spokesperson for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, told Axios in an email.

What's next: Some people who lost Medicaid likely wound up in the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces.