Commonwealth Fund: What Might a Medicaid Work Requirement Mean?
The Trump administration has made work requirements a hallmark of its Medicaid policy proposals, including the idea in the just-released 2018 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) budget proposal, and as part of its Medicaid demonstration agenda. The House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA) likewise allows states to make having a job a requirement for gaining Medicaid eligibility.
While the administration’s HHS budget proposal lacks detail, presumably, like the AHCA, it would incorporate the work requirement rules found in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which provides temporary cash welfare assistance. These TANF policies condition federal funding to states on meeting work targets for TANF recipients; federal law offers only a handful of exemptions for people with disabilities, new mothers, and parents of very young children. . .