New Delhi, June 19 -- layoffs will follow if not enough people take it. Centene Corp., the St. Louis-based company that has spent a decade becoming the financial backbone of state Medicaid programs, is now reducing the very workforce that processes the claims of the people the federal government is about to cut off.

The voluntary separation program was confirmed Monday by a Centene spokesperson, who declined to put a number on the target. The company would not say what level of staffing it considered viable. What it would say is that the timing is not coincidental.

The membership numbers are the proximate cause. Centene's plan enrollment fell six percent year over year in the first quarter, down to 26.3 million from roughly 28 million i...