By Michael Ollove
October 8, 2015
If Arizona gets its way, its able-bodied, low-income adults will face the toughest requirements in the country to receive health care coverage through Medicaid.
Most of the those Medicaid recipients and new applicants would have to have a job, be looking for one or be in job training to qualify for the joint federal-state program for the poor. They would have to contribute their own money to health savings accounts, which they could tap into only if they met work requirements or engaged in certain types of healthy behavior, such as completing wellness physical exams or participating in smoking cessation classes. And most recipients would be limited to just five years of coverage as adults.
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“I think in some of (the proposals), we see a punitive strain and an assumption that, left to themselves, people will make bad choices and that we the government will make better choices for them,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University.
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