Work Requirement for Obamacare Medicaid Catching On

Americans have been bombarded by mainstream media coverage over the past few weeks reporting that the Trump administration is allowing states to impose a work requirement for Medicaid, but this is not the extent of what some groups want.

Nicholas Horton of the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) says that a number of states have some plans of their own regarding what is left of the so-called Affordable Care Act.

“In states that expanded Medicaid, there’s a couple things that they can do,” Horton informed. “For one, freeze enrollment to say that ‘we’re not going to sign up any more people in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.'”

According to Horton, these states are signing up on average more than twice as many non-disabled adults as they said they would. This – in and of itself – he says, leads to massive cost-overruns.

“So, stopping enrollment – kind of stopping the bleeding – I think, is really step one,” the government watchdog emphasized. “Work requirements are great, and I think in any state – whether you’ve expanded Medicaid or not – [we should be] making sure that people on Medicaid actually qualify for Medicaid.”

Horton pointed to his home state of Arkansas as an example.

“Just a few weeks ago, the governor announced the removal of 80,000 people who were on our Medicaid program but didn’t qualify,” he recounted. “Eighty thousand people – and that’s all money that could and should go to people that truly qualify, that truly need help, so making sure that states are monitoring, verifying eligibility, and cracking down on welfare fraud is one of the most important things people can do.”

According to a recent telephone and online survey from Rasmussen Reports, 64 percent of American adults believe that childless, able-bodied adults in their home state should be required to work as a condition for receiving Medicaid.

Meanwhile, Kentucky Medicaid beneficiaries have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging it over the work requirements.

www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2018/02/04/work-requirement-for-obamacare-medicaid-catching-on