BATON ROUGE (AP) - Tens of thousands of Louisiana Medicaid enrollees told they earn too much to stay in the program have a month to prove otherwise if they want to hang onto the health insurance.

Louisiana's health department sent letters this month to 37,000 Medicaid recipients notifying them they will lose the taxpayer-financed insurance coverage. The agency says those people have until March 29 to present information demonstrating they meet Medicaid income requirements or they'll be ejected from the program at March's end.

Medicaid Director Jen Steele told a legislatively created task force Tuesday she couldn't estimate how many people ultimately will lose their coverage. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy says he intends to ask federal Medicaid officials to try to recoup any money spent on Louisiana enrollees who shouldn't have received the coverage.