New work requirements for Healthy Michigan, the state’s Medicaid expansion program, kicked off on Jan. 1.
The rule, enacted by former Gov. Rick Snyder, requires able-bodied adults ages 19-62 in the program to spend 20 hours per week working, finding work, or training for work to keep health care benefits through the state.
Those who aren’t exempt from work requirements must report on Feb. 29 with proof of workforce activity of 80 hours per month in January. Those hours include:
- Studying as a student
- Volunteering (can only be used for three months each calendar year)
- Participating in a tribal employment program
- Participating in rehab for substance abuse
- Working in vocational training
- Working in an internship
There are work requirement exemptions for those who are pregnant, medically frail, recently released from prison, full-time students, and others.
Healthy Michigan enrollees who aren’t exempt from work requirements will lose health care coverage if they don’t report workforce activities for three months, said Bob Wheaton, a public information officer for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).
Wheaton told The Center Square that MDHHS has reached out extensively to notify those involved through letters, news releases, social media posts, and meetings across the state.
MDHHS Director Robert Gordon estimated the change could result in more than 100,000 Michiganders losing health insurance, based on activities in other states.
Healthy Michigan has a total of 675,000 beneficiaries.
Greg George, a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Center Square that the requirement will help Michiganders open doors to the over 200,000 available jobs in the state.
“Medicaid was originally intended to be a safety net for the elderly and disabled,” George said, citing MDHHS data that nearly 50 percent of Medicaid expansion enrollees aren’t working.
George said able-bodied workers are “crowding out much-needed resources for the truly needy and trapping hundreds of thousands of new enrollees in welfare.”
After work requirements were implemented in other welfare programs, workers’ incomes more than doubled, George said, with the higher wages more than offsetting lost welfare benefits.
“Helping able-bodied adults out of dependency as quickly as possible is critical to future success because the longer able-bodied adults spend on welfare, the more difficult it is for them to re-enter the workforce,” George said in an email.
“Additionally, states will see increased tax collections after work requirements, providing more money for roads, public safety, and education.”
Work requirement critics say the rule is “largely unnecessary” because “most Healthy Michigan enrollees that are able to work are already doing so,” Alex Rossman, external affairs director for the Michigan League for Public Policy, said in an email.
Rossman pointed to evidence in other states pursuing similar changes, saying that thousands of Michiganders could lose healthcare coverage just because they don’t know about the work requirement or struggle with the reporting process, “not because they aren’t abiding by the new law.”
Rossman said that “moving forward with any work requirement jeopardizes health coverage for all Healthy Michigan enrollees.”
“Every other state that was ahead of us in pursuing Medicaid or Medicaid expansion work requirements have paused them, either due to legal action or common sense, so Michigan is currently alone in implementing them – even though a lawsuit is pending on our work requirements as well,” Rossman said.
The Senate Fiscal Agency estimated net state savings between $5 million and $20 million annually from a decreased state caseload due to the work requirement.
