Work hour requirements to get and keep Medicaid coverage are proposed or are now required in multiple states under the encouragement of the Trump Administration. Arkansas, Kentucky, and Indiana all have received approval for Medicaid waivers containing work requirements. Even states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, where covered adults are largely either elderly, disabled, or parents […]
For over 30 years, Medicaid has encouraged work by parents, persons with disabilities, and others. You sure wouldn’t know it from the CMS Administrator’s repeated calls for “community engagement” by the “able bodied.” But there it is, in plain view: section 1925 of the Social Security Act, Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA). TMA was designed to […]
Last week, the Kaiser Family Foundation released its February tracking poll. The results? Three quarters of respondents had a “very favorable” (40%) or “somewhat favorable” (34%) opinion of Medicaid. Over half of respondents (52%) said that the Medicaid program is working well for most low-income Americans covered by the program. On Monday, someone who has […]
A broad and diverse group of children’s health, medical and advocacy organizations are speaking up against adding work requirements and other barriers to Medicaid coverage. Forty-four organizations sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar today expressing serious concerns about the agency’s proposed changes to Medicaid’s Section 1115 waiver policy, which could lead to thousands […]
Earlier this week, the GAO released a new report that looks closely at Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration evaluations. The states examined are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York. The report was requested by Republican Members of Congress from the committees of jurisdiction. The report uncovered a number of problems including that […]
I recently pulled out my calculator to look into the budget neutrality assumptions underlying Mississippi’s Section 1115 Medicaid waiver, and the results were disturbing. I unpacked this waiver in a previous blog. Kansas has a similar request pending and a handful of other non-Medicaid expansion states have suggested they may follow suit (including Alabama, South […]
