Greg Kaufmann, Talk Poverty - Recent
congressional proposals to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act
would have reduced Medicaid enrollment by up to 15 million people, and,
despite being defeated, congressional Republicans aren’t done yet: It’s
likely they will attempt to gut the program during the upcoming budget
debate. Meanwhile, more than half a dozen conservative governors are
trying to take a hatchet to the program—at the open invitation of the
Trump administration—through a vehicle known as a “Medicaid waiver.”
Waivers
are intended for state pilot projects designed to improve health care
coverage for vulnerable populations. But that’s not what conservative
governors are pursuing. In Maine, for example, as citizens prepare to
vote on a referendum that would force the state to expand Medicaid to
70,000 people, Gov. Paul LePage (R) is moving in the opposite direction.
His Department of Health and Human Services has requested permission to
create a 20-hour-a-week work requirement, impose co-pays and premiums,
and implement a $5,000 asset cap on Medicaid beneficiaries. The result,
health care experts warn, will be that low-income people in Maine will
be kicked off the program.
LePage’s administration argues that
the work requirement will help people earn more and become more
self-sufficient. But according to Hannah Katch, a senior policy analyst
at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former administrator
of the California Medicaid program, 80 percent of Medicaid patients
nationwide are already in working families. “The vast majority of people
who aren’t working are either taking care of a family member, have a
physical or behavioral health condition, or are in school, or have a
combination of these factors,” said Katch. “While a work requirement is
unlikely to help them get a job, it is very likely to take away health
coverage from people who can’t work.”
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