{"id":146850,"date":"2025-05-14T14:25:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T14:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=146850"},"modified":"2025-05-14T14:25:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T14:25:58","slug":"ar-testing-ground-for-congressional-gop-plan-to-push-people-off-medicaid-with-paperwork-hurdles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=146850","title":{"rendered":"AR Testing Ground for Congressional GOP Plan to Push People Off Medicaid with Paperwork Hurdles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2025\/05\/13\/medicaid-work-requirements-paperwork-reconciliation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WaPo<\/a>: &#8220;But the reality is that requirements like these move people off programs not by requiring&nbsp;<em>work<\/em>&nbsp;but by requiring more&nbsp;<em>reporting<\/em>&nbsp;of work. Similar state-level policies have reduced the number of Medicaid recipients \u2014 but only by increasing the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/fordschool.umich.edu\/news\/2025\/herd-and-moynihan-framework-reduce-administrative-burdens-social-safety-net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">administrative burden<\/a>&nbsp;on recipients, not by increasing the share who are employed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s what happened in Arkansas, which alone implemented\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfyi.org\/news\/articles\/as-republicans-push-work-requirements-in-medicaid-one-state-offers-a-cautionary-tale\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">work reporting rules<\/a>\u00a0in 2018. Medicaid beneficiaries in their 30s and 40s were notified that they had to work 80 hours a month, participate in another qualifying activity such as job training or community service or meet criteria for exemption such as caregiving or disability \u2014 and that they would have to report their activities online each month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMsr1901772\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">95 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the target population appeared either to meet work requirements or qualify for an exemption. But signing up for an online account and filing reports every month was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/medicaid\/issue-brief\/medicaid-work-requirements-in-arkansas-experience-and-perspectives-of-enrollees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confusing and challenging<\/a>, especially for enrollees who didn\u2019t have reliable internet access or who had chronic health conditions \u2014 some of the most vulnerable Medicaid recipients. And, indeed,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMsr1901772\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">17,000 individuals<\/a>\u00a0who had previously qualified for Medicaid lost their benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMsr1901772\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">early research<\/a>\u00a0and a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.urban.org\/urban-wire\/new-evidence-confirms-arkansas-medicaid-work-requirement-did-not-boost-employment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent analysis<\/a>\u00a0came to the same conclusion: Although the policy dramatically reduced the share of adults with health insurance coverage, it did nothing to boost employment. These results are in line with research on national work reporting requirements in other programs\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/a-primer-on-snap-work-requirements\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WaPo: &#8220;But the reality is that requirements like these move people off programs not by requiring&nbsp;work&nbsp;but by requiring more&nbsp;reporting&nbsp;of work. Similar state-level policies have reduced the number of Medicaid recipients \u2014 but only by increasing the&nbsp;administrative burden&nbsp;on recipients, not by increasing the share who are employed. That\u2019s what happened in Arkansas, which alone implemented\u00a0work reporting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146851,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146850\/revisions\/146851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}