Code for America Labs

Nearly half New York State’s population—8.6 million people—rely on Medicaid, the Essential Plan, or subsidized marketplace plans, but recent federal changes put an estimated 4.5 million New Yorkers’ insurance at risk. With recent changes, Medicaid recipients who qualify under the Affordable Care Act’s expanded eligibility rules will be subject to new work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks, and the State will no longer be able to continuously cover children aged 0–6 on Medicaid. NYHealth has a long history of partnering with the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) to expand and protect insurance coverage. One of the most effective ways to ensure that New Yorkers maintain coverage is to use technology to automate wherever possible, reducing the need for enrollees to act. In 2025, NYHealth awarded Code for America Labs (CFA) a grant to partner with the New York State Department of Health to improve automated systems to handle more frequent renewals and reduce the number of consumers losing insurance coverage for administrative reasons.

Under this grant, CFA will partner with NYSDOH to design technology solutions that reduce consumers losing health insurance coverage for administrative reasons, like missed deadlines or missing documents. The work will focus on populations at highest risk, including adults subject to work requirements and biannual eligibility checks and young children who will lose continuous eligibility beginning in 2027. Through system assessment, design, testing, and implementation support, Code for America will help NYSDOH maximize automatic renewals, streamline eligibility processes, and enable tens of thousands of New Yorkers to maintain continuous health insurance coverage.