Can Work Be Required in the Medicaid Program?

Medicaid enrollment among previously uninsured Americans and associated outcomes by race/ethnicity—United States, 2008‐2014

“…Twenty-eight million Americans remain uninsured in the United States, 41 and this number is expected to rise following the recent repeal of tax penalties related to the individual mandate and other federal changes to Medicaid eligibility. 42,43 Our study suggests Healthcare. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 2018 Academy Health Annual Research Meeting in Seattle, WA.…”

“…Twenty‐eight million Americans remain uninsured in the United States, and this number is expected to rise following the recent repeal of tax penalties related to the individual mandate and other federal changes to Medicaid eligibility . Our study suggests Medicaid is a powerful tool for improving access to care and affordability across racial and ethnic groups and has important effects on mental health.…”

New Approaches In Medicaid: Work Requirements, Health Savings Accounts, And Health Care Access

“…Advocates of work requirements have pointed to the positive association between employment and health to argue that the policy could improve Medicaid health outcomes by inducing more beneficiaries to work 34 (though the causality of this relationship is unclear). Our findings suggest that work requirements would likely produce modest impacts on job-searching behavior in this population, inducing some people to look for jobs but not changing the likelihood of employment for the vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of people who might enroll in Medicaid.…”

State Governments and Judges May Moderate the Impact of the Trump Administration’s Promotion of Medicaid Work Requirements

“…HHS allowing states to impose work requirements may run afoul of the underlying legislative intentions of both the ACA and the Social Security Act and multiple groups have sued. 1 On June 29, 2018 judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a summary judgment that blocked the implementation of Kentucky's proposed work requirements. The ruling itself was narrow, suggesting that CMS did not properly consider potential coverage losses that the state projected work requirements would cause, which simply has resulted in CMS creating an additional period for public comment before reconsidering the application.…”

“…The most controversial of these are Bcommunity engagement^standards which would require certain classes of adults to engage a certain number of hours of work-related activities a month to qualify for Medicaid. Considerable insightful commentary and research has discussed the legality of the proposed work waivers, 1,2 their potential effects on coverage if they were widely adopted, 3 and on how physicians and public health experts might be able to counteract potential negative effects. 4 However, little discussion has focused on how widespread waiver-supported work requirements might become.…”