Arkansas implemented a work requirement for their Medicaid recipients. Kentucky soon followed. A democratic governor elected reversed the state requirement and Kentucky was eliminated from the lawsuit.

The ruling, written by a Reagan appointee, said the administration failed to show how such rules would help Medicaid to meet its mission of covering the poor.

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, has repeatedly said work requirements can improve people’s health and help them “rise out of poverty and government dependence. .”                                –Credit… Kelly P. Kissel/Associated Press

Work requirements have long been central to the Republican goal of instilling a sense of “personal responsibility” in people who benefit from government programs. Supporters of such rules for Medicaid recipients have said that extending the safety-net program to millions of low-income adults without disabilities, as the Affordable Care Act allowed, gave them an incentive not to work. . .

But a large portion of Medicaid recipients do already work. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 63 percent of adult Medicaid recipients without disabilities have part- or full-time jobs. . .

As part of a broader quest to reshape the Medicaid program — which covers more than 71 million people, or more than one in five Americans — Ms. Verma last month announced plans to allow states to cap Medicaid spending for many poor adults, a major shift long sought by conservatives. States that participate would have broad flexibility to design coverage for those adults, who are also the population targeted by work requirements. . .

Read the entire article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/health/medicaid-work-requirements.html

Abby Goodnough is a national health care correspondent. She has also served as bureau chief in Miami and Boston, and covered education and politics in New York City. She joined The Times in 1993. @abbygoodnough

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 Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.

– Ronald Reagan

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