Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said delaying implementation of work requirements for enrollees in Michigan's Medicaid expansion program would prevent the state from potentially wasting at least $1 million.
The Democrat issued a special message to legislative leaders Tuesday, a day after saying the Republican-controlled Legislature should pause the rules taking effect in January.
Whitmer said the state has spent $28 million to implement the workforce engagement requirements and is on track to spend an additional $40 million this fiscal year — an unnecessary expense if a federal judge blocks the rules.
Coming on top of not one, not two, but three other states either scrapping or "delaying" implementation of Medicaid expansion work requirements (Arizona, Indiana and Montana), this one isn't particularly surprising given that Democrats hold the governor's seat and just flipped both the state House and Senate. Still welcome, though!
Gov. Ralph Northam has directed Virginia's Medicaid program to "pause" negotiations with the federal government on approval of a work requirement that was central to a political deal that allowed the state to expand eligibility for the program's health care benefits to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Virginians.
Northam cited the Democratic takeover of both chambers of the General Assembly in legislative elections last month. He also referred to litigation that has faced other states that have tried to link Medicaid health benefits to requirements that program participants seek work, training, education or other forms of civic engagement.
But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Under the Arkansas law, targeted enrollees were notified by the state via mail and informational flyers that they were required to work 80 hours a month, participate in another qualifying activity such as job training or community service, or meet criteria for an exemption such as pregnancy, a disability or parenting a child.
UPDATE: Well what do you know? Less than a day after Kliff wrote her story on the BYU-Idaho situation, they've already reversed their stance! Bravo for her!
BYU-Idaho, the school @sarahkliff reported would not allow its students to enroll in Medicaid, sent this email to students reversing its decision, per my DMs pic.twitter.com/jEuIu9K1KT
I heard about this story a couple of weeks ago but didn't get around to writing about it until today. Via Twitter:
Students of the BYUs: might want to start making some noise: the Church Board of Ed just decided that they won’t accept Medicaid as a provider for their student health insurance requirement. The week IDaho expanded Medicaid too. Catch 22? DMBA doesn’t count for ACA requirement.
BREAKING -- Poverty rights group files suit in federal court against work requirements MI has enacted for those on expanded Medicaid program Healthy Michigan.
A lawsuit has been filed challenging Michigan's new Medicaid work requirements that take effect Jan. 1. Plaintiffs are 4 people enrolled in the Medicaid expansion program known as Healthy Michigan #MiLeg
The recent elections in Virginia, Kentucky and Louisiana had two things in common: The first is that all three were huge victories for Democrats (they took control of both the state House and Senate in Virginia, flipped the Governor's seat in Kentucky and held onto it in deep red Louisiana).
The second is that all three elections were won in large part based on...Medicaid expansion.
Yet Edwards won, in large part, by also stressing his implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion in the state during his first term. Indeed, Edwards’s lead pollster, Zac McCrary, told me during an interview that no single issue was more important in driving the governor’s victory.
In 2015, Republican Matt Bevin campaigned for governor on two major healthcare-related platforms:
Eliminate the state's perfectly-functioning, award-winning, highly-praised and beloved ACA exchange, "kynect" for no particular reason other than spite.
Eliminate the state's ACA Medicaid expansion program, which as of this writing provides around 480,000 low-income Kentuckians with healthcare coverage.
For some inexplicable reason, voters in Kentucky elected him regardless. Once he got into office, he did indeed make good on the first promise, shutting down the state's perfectly good ACA exchange platform and shifting KY to the federal exchange at HealthCare.Gov.
When it came to eliminating Medicaid expansion, on the other hand, he found it to be a little bit tougher than expected; actually pulling the plug on nearly half a million people's healthcare coverage proved to be a tougher nut to crack than he thought.
Several studies, including this one from just the other day, have driven home this point clearly: Adding work requirements to Medicaid expansion enrollees serves no useful purpose other than to kick tens of thousands of people off of their healthcare coverage (which, of course, is the whole point from the POV of those who add the requirements).
As for the one positive-sounding goal (increasing employment) which supporters always use to try and justify them, that's a complete joke:
The first major study on the nation’s first Medicaid work requirements finds that people fell off of the Medicaid rolls but didn’t seem to find more work.
In other words, only about 10% (at most) of those still in the Medicaid Gap could even remotely match the GOP's cliche of a "lazy, good-for-nothing layabout" type who's able-bodied, has no serious extenuating circumstances and so forth. The "get off your ass and work!" requirements appear to be nearly as big a waste of time and resources as the infamous "drug testing for welfare recipients" bandwagon which a bunch of states jumped on board over the past few years.
It turns out that this was only part of a marathon voting session yesterdayover the past few weeks. Either the state Senate, Assembly or both have also voted to pass threea bunch ofother healthcare-related bills (I've included simple descriptions of each):
BREAKING: California Assembly passes our #AB1246(@Limon) to align consumer protections for all Californians, including those in large group coverage. #Care4AllCA
Federal law generally bars illegal immigrants from being covered by Medicaid. But a little-known part of the state-federal health insurance program for the poor has long paid about $2 billion a year for emergency treatment for a group of patients who, according to hospitals, mostly comprise illegal immigrants.
The lion’s share goes to reimburse hospitals for delivering babies for women who show up in their emergency rooms, according to interviews with hospital officials and studies.
We've taken a closer look at these #'s - check out your state below.
The net national # is 840k kids losing Medicaid/CHIP in 2018 not 860k as we said initially
But in the 39 states losing kids on Medicaid the net total # is worse -- 920,000
We’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of final Medicaid and CHIP enrollment data for 2018, which was expected to be posted almost a month ago. The wait is finally over but not our concerns about what’s happening.
"Medicaid Work Requirements" have been in the news a lot over the past two years as the Trump Administration has given states the go-ahead to start imposing increasingly draconian, humiliating and ineffective work requirements for low-income people to avoid losing healthcare coverage.
For the most part, though, the work requirement bills have at the very least been restricted to ACA expansion of the Medicaid program to "able-bodied" adults earning up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Line (roughly $17,000/year for a single adult or $23,300 for a couple without minor children).
Today, Joan Alker of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Center for Children & Famlies reports that the Florida House of Representatives is planning on taking the cruelty even further:
URGENT: On Thursday, the Florida House will take up the harshest Medicaid work reporting requirement bill that I’ve EVER seen. As many as 100,000, mostly mothers, could lose their health insurance. https://t.co/64uRz23Puk
Combined, the Medicaid and CHIP programs have around 72.5 million Americans enrolled in them as of December 2018. However, the vast majority--over 80% of them--are actually enrolled in privately managed Medicaid programs. Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) are private health insurance companies which states contract with to handle the administration and management. In some cases this works out reasonably well. In others...not so much:
More than 425,000 poor or disabled Iowans will soon have to switch health insurance carriers.
UnitedHealthcare, which manages health care for more than two-thirds of Iowans on Medicaid, is leaving the market, Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office announced late Friday afternoon.
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, mimicking laws in other states that have been struck down by the courts and drawing the criticism of both advocates and opponents of abortion rights.
The measure, House Bill 77, would tightly restrict the window of time within which a woman could seek an abortion, because a fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. That is before many women even realize they are pregnant.
