CityLab
By: Sarah Holder
In June, Arkansas began rolling out a controversial change to its Medicaid program. Under a new state plan, all recipients who are able to work will have to log 80 working hours each month, or risk losing access to their health care. But finding a job might not be the biggest hurdle for many people. In order to stay eligible for Medicaid, Arkansas’s recipients must report their working hours each month, and it must be done online—the state doesn’t offer a way to do it via mail, telephone, or in person.
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It’s hard to parse where the reporting breaks down: whether it’s because people don’t have internet access, couldn’t work enough hours, or something else. Some people may not have been successfully notified of the new reporting plan at all. “If Arkansas sends out a letter and the address is wrong, they just kick them off,” Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, told the Los Angeles Times. “Arkansas is shedding enrollment.”
