Two prominent Democratic senators have asked the Government Accountability Office to study why COVID vaccination rates among Medicaid program participants remain far below the general population, and what barriers impede state efforts to increase immunization of program beneficiaries, low-income people Vaccination rates, these people are disproportionately affected by the virus.

Robert Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania and Ron Wyden of Oregon askQuoting KHN’s recent stories and roll call According to a letter to the GAO provided to KHN, this highlights the problem and ongoing efforts by states to increase vaccination rates.A sort of KHN Articles The report, published in February, reported data from several states, including Utah, Washington, Virginia and California, that showed vaccination rates among the Medicaid population were well below the state’s overall rate. In California, for example, 54 percent of Medicaid participants age 5 and older were at least partially vaccinated, compared with 81 percent of state residents in that age group.

Part of the problem is that the plan doesn’t have many members’ current addresses or phone numbers, making it difficult to reach them, state and Medicaid officials told KHN.in a KHN Story Released in August, state officials said they were also hampered by a lack of access to data on which members were vaccinated.

These issues reflect the decentralized nature of Medicaid, which receives most of its funding from the federal government but is administered by the states.

“The barriers to vaccinating Medicaid enrollees are particularly troubling given the program’s importance to people of color and low-wage workers,” the senators wrote in a letter to the GAO.

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“We are concerned that these data barriers may hinder efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates and address persistent health inequities exacerbated by the pandemic, especially in communities of color and those with limited incomes disproportionately affected by the disease in the crowd.”