MONTGOMERY — The Alabama Medicaid Agency continues its post-COVID “unwinding” of its rolls and more than 34,000 Alabamians were removed from the health care coverage program between March and April, according to a new report from the agency.

Medicaid unwinding refers to the process in which states have reevaluated the eligibility of their Medicaid recipients following the expiration of pandemic-era federal protections, and subsequently began removing from their rolls those no longer eligible.

Adopted with the passage of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, those protections prevented states from removing people from the Medicaid rolls, regardless of whether or not recipients had become ineligible for the program due to increases in pay or other factors.