A federal judge has struck down work requirements for Healthy Michigan’s Medicaid expansion program.
Those rules required able-bodied adults ages 19-62 to report an average of 80 hours per month working or in school to keep health care benefits through the state.
U.S District Judge James Boasberg in Washington issued the ruling, which follow past court decisions in Arkansas.
A U.S. Appeals Court struck down work requirements in Arkansas on February 14, 2020, ruling that “the principal objective of Medicaid is providing health care coverage,” Senior Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle wrote.
Before the ruling, Michigan was the only state to enforce the work rule requirement. The work requirement was signed into law in 2018 by then-Governor Rick Snyder.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration on Feb. 25 requested an expedited court decision after the Arkansas ruling. Whitmer called the Wednesday court decision “great news.”
“While it’s unfortunate that Republicans in the Legislature created confusion and wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars by pressing forward with implementation of requirements that were clearly going to be thrown out by the courts, I look forward to working with the Legislature on a better way to promote work while protecting coverage,” she said.
Whitmer asked the Legislature to halt work requirements starting on Jan. 1 after December oral arguments in the Arkansas case.
But Republicans stood by their plan, arguing the requirements gave able-bodied healthy Michiganders an opportunity to advance their career and to keep the program financially afloat.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon said the department had spent over $30 million implementing the now-dismissed requirements.
Before the court ruling, about 80,000 people didn’t meet work requirements in January and could have lost health care coverage if they didn’t report the requirements for a total of three months.
MDHHS must update those individuals now that the work requirements were struck down.
About 654,000 beneficiaries receive coverage under the Healthy Michigan Plan as of March.
Gideon D’Assandro, Speaker Lee Chatfield’s press secretary, told The Center Square that the Levering Republican was disappointed by the decision.
“The speaker is disappointed for the hard-working taxpayers who now have to continue footing the bill for this program, even when able-bodied people simply choose not to work,” he said in an email. “Requiring welfare recipients to at least look for a job in order to get free government healthcare is just common sense.”
Greg George, a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, said Michigan’s work requirements “would have helped more able-bodied adults achieve independence and further the core goals of the Medicaid program.
“Opponents of commonsense reforms continue to use the courts to block good public policy that voters overwhelmingly support, hurting the truly needy and taxpayers alike,” George told The Center Square in an email. “Unfortunately, the federal judge’s ruling will keep hundreds of thousands of able-bodied adults in dependency, instead of putting them on a path towards self-sufficiency.”
Sen. Peter MacGregor, R-Rockford, told The Detroit News that President Donald Trump’s administration plans to appeal the ruling.
