Two top Democrats urged in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to put an end to the Medicaid work requirements, arguing that they led to widespread loss of coverage in Arkansas.
Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Frank Pallone, who signed the letter, maintained the Trump administration disregarded Congressional intent and failed to track the impact of waiver policies.
States can receive federal funds for Medicaid by using Medicaid 1115 waivers, which have to be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services first. Arkansas was the first state to do so and implement work requirements after the Trump administration signaled in 2017 it was open to approving them.
The two congressional Democrats expressed in the letter the same concerns they had prior to the Arkansas policy taking effect.
“We, unfortunately, are now seeing these concerns play out in real life in the state of Arkansas where thousands of individuals have been forced off and locked out of their Medicaid coverage,” Wyden and Pallone wrote in the letter.
The Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services said that by the middle of last month, over 18,000 beneficiaries lost coverage in the state. The law, which Arkansas implemented in June 2018, requires beneficiaries to work, volunteer, search for jobs or go to school 80 hours a month in order to be eligible for Medicaid.
Arkansas was among 15 states that had applied for waivers to impose work requirements, eight of which were granted approval.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce said in a news release that the policy was an attempt to create obstacles to health care.
“If you think about the Medicaid statute the goal is to cover people and ensure that people who are in need have access to quality affordable healthcare these waivers are designed to purge people from the rolls,” said the committee press secretary for health issues.
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