The Trump administration is still evaluating whether it will approve more work requirements in states that want to add them to their Medicaid program, following a court ruling blocking them in Kentucky.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said that her agency was “trying to figure out a path forward” on the requirements, which it supports and has approved in three states other than Kentucky.
Recommended Stories
“We are very committed to this,” Verma said at the Politico Pro Summit in Washington, D.C. “We are looking at what the court said. We want to be respectful of the court’s decision while trying to push ahead with our policy and our goals.”
Under Obamacare, states were allowed to expand government-funded Medicaid coverage to people of under specific income level, of roughly $16,000 a year, regardless of whether they are working. Medicaid otherwise covers pregnant women, people with disabilities, people in nursing homes and children, a group that members of the Trump administration and conservatives say should be the focus of the program.
Certain states have asked the Trump administration to be allowed to implement “community engagement requirements,” also known as “work requirements,” that would obligate certain enrollees work, take classes, or volunteer as a condition of staying on the program.
At least eight other states, including Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, and Wisconsin, have pending requests.
Verma has framed the requirements as a “pathway out of poverty” and the administration has argued that work is associated with better health outcomes. Health officials have said the goal of the program should be to have people arrive at a place where they are no longer considered to be in poverty and can have a job that provides coverage.
Though the provisions contain multiple exemptions for people undergoing treatment for addiction and for caregivers, among other groups, critics say that people will be unable to keep up with the reporting requirements and will become uninsured.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled in the Kentucky lawsuit that the requirements violated the standards of the Medicaid program, which were changed through the passage of Obamacare. The Trump administration had not taken into account studies showing that 95,000 people would move out of Medicaid, Boasberg wrote in his opinion.
