Feds allow states to impose Medicaid work requirements

The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would allow states to impose work requirements in Medicaid (Source: “Trump Administration Says States May Impose Work Requirements for Medicaid,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 2018).

In an announcement yesterday, federal officials said they would support state efforts to require able-bodied adults to work or participate in other “community engagement activities” as a condition of eligibility for Medicaid.

Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the Trump administration was responding to requests from Medicaid officials in 10 states that wanted to run demonstration projects testing requirements for work or other types of community engagement like training, education, job search, volunteer activities and caregiving. The Medicaid proposals came from Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin. Several other states are considering work requirements.

Ohio’s General Assembly has repeatedly required the Department of Medicaid to submit waiver requests for work requirements.  The first waiver, the Healthy Ohio waiver, was submitted in 2016 and rejected by the Obama Administration.  HB 49, Ohio’s most recent biennial budget bill, required the department to submit a waiver to create an additional work requirement for people eligible under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion to adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.