The Minimal Responsibilities And Unintended Consequences Of Medicaid Work Requirements; Democrats Object To New Medicaid Rule Requiring Able Adults To Work A Bare Minimum

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The Minimal Responsibilities And Unintended Consequences Of Medicaid Work Requirements:

The Trump administration unveiled a rule implementing the Medicaid work requirements included in last year’s budget reconciliation law.

The Trump administration recently unveiled a rule implementing the Medicaid work requirements included in last year’s budget reconciliation law. The rule strikes a reasonable balance designed to encourage participation in labor markets while not being unduly burdensome to states or beneficiaries.

The welfare industrial complex has protested that the requirements will lead individuals to lose insurance coverage. But an examination of the law’s intricacies shows that beneficiaries in many jurisdictions can comply by working what averages out to just over an hour per week. Moreover, in one of its unintended consequences, work requirements may end up encouraging increases in state and/or federal minimum wage, which generally reduce employment and jobs rather than increasing them.

Some observers might believe that talk of a requirement for Medicaid beneficiaries to conduct “community engagement” for 80 hours per month means that beneficiaries will have to participate in those activities every month. It doesn’t, and they won’t. Section 71119 of the reconciliation measure requires states to confirm community engagement “for one or more but not more than 3 consecutive months” at renewal.

According to a spring survey conducted by KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, 34 of the 41 states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare (the population to whom the work requirement applies) will confirm community engagement for a one-month period. Likewise, 34 states will document compliance with work requirements only at renewal, which under the law will occur every six months for the Medicaid expansion population. Thus, in most states, beneficiaries subject to work requirements will have to document compliance for two months out of the year.

The law also includes alternative ways to comply with the engagement requirement. Specifically, a beneficiary can show monthly income — which under the rule also includes unearned income — greater than or equal to 80 times the minimum wage, or $580. While many states have increased their minimum wages in recent years, the law linked the income test to the federal minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009. --->READ MORE HERE

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Democrats Object To New Medicaid Rule Requiring Able Adults To Work A Bare Minimum:

The law should encourage able adults receiving taxpayer-funded benefits to contribute to the community while advancing their own self-sufficiency, and the new Medicaid rule does just that

Longtime Washington denizens recognize that Congress and the president enacting a bill into law does not end the policymaking process — far from it. Enactment stands not as the end of the process, nor even the beginning of the end, but rather (to borrow from Churchill) the end of the beginning. Federal agencies must then translate statutory language into federal regulation.

To that end, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its rule implementing Medicaid work requirements from last year’s budget reconciliation measure on June 1, as required by that law. Because the work requirements take effect on Jan. 1, and state Medicaid programs need clear “rules of the road” before that date, Congress specified that the interim final rule will take effect before CMS can respond to public comments. However, the public can still submit comments between now and July 31, and CMS will consider those comments when drafting the final regulation.

The rule generated immediate and predictable objections from leftist groups, many of whom opposed enacting work requirements in the first place. But a closer examination of the provisions of the rule, and the statute it implements, shows the reasonable nature of asking able-bodied adults — the requirements only apply to those individuals in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion — to work in exchange for receiving taxpayer-funded benefits.

Less Than Meets the Eye

Most people think a Medicaid work requirement linked to 80 hours of community engagement per month applies year-round. But as I previously noted, the vast majority of states replying to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey this spring said they would check beneficiaries’ compliance with work requirements every six months, and only for one month out of every six:

• A total of 34 states said they will conduct checks every six months. Only Indiana and New Hampshire will check compliance quarterly, while Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Dakota, and West Virginia had yet to decide.
• Additionally, 34 states said that when processing renewal applications, they will look back one month to check compliance with the work requirement. Again, only Indiana and New Hampshire will look back for a full three months, while Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, North Dakota, and West Virginia had yet to decide.

Only in Indiana and New Hampshire, which will verify compliance every quarter and with a three-month lookback period, will Medicaid beneficiaries have to document work, education, or volunteering 80 hours per month every single month. Most states will check beneficiaries’ compliance for two months out of the year, meaning beneficiaries can meet the work requirement by working 80 hours per month in only two months — just 160 hours per year.

Additional Flexibility--->READ MORE HERE

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