Red States May Be Ready to Expand Medicaid — In Exchange for Work

Pew Stateline

By: Christine Vestal

Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin says he doesn’t want more able-bodied poor people to get Medicaid in his state unless a portion of them are required to work. And when Republicans in Virginia agreed to expand Medicaid this year, they also said recipients who are able would have to work. In several states this year, the march to bring health care benefits to more low-income residents came with the insistence that able-bodied adults — who are just a fraction of all Medicaid recipients — put in hours of work or volunteer time each month to retain the assistance.

In Arkansas, for example, after implementing work rules for the first time in June, the state reported that at least 7,000 people could lose coverage — most because they either didn’t know about the new requirement or couldn’t get access to a computer with internet access to fill out the forms, said Marquita Little, health policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Family and Children, which lobbied against the work rule when it was considered by the Legislature in 2017.

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