- Medicaid Work Requirements Violate Program's Intent, Scholars Say Modern Healthcare by Susannah Luthi — More than 40 public health scholars on Friday stepped into a lawsuit challenging Kentucky's plan to enact work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries. They argue the policy contradicts the intent of the Medicaid demonstration statute to improve the program, and that unintended consequences could lead to massive revenue drops for health centers. In an amicus brief, scholars and deans of schools of public health—including those of Columbia, Boston, Yale, and UCLA as well as prominent health law scholars like Sara Rosenbaum of George Washington University and Abbe Gluck of Yale—alleged that ratcheting back coverage will make the work requirements' impact harsher and have reverberating effects on healthcare in the communities where beneficiaries are losing Medicaid.
- Trump Signs Order to Require Recipients of Federal Aid Programs to Work New York Times by Glenn Thrush — President Trump quietly signed a long-anticipated executive order on Tuesday intended to force low-income recipients of food assistance, Medicaid and low-income housing subsidies to join the work force or face the loss of their benefits. The order, in the works since last year, has an ambitious title — "Reducing Poverty in America" — and is directed at "any program that provides means-tested assistance or other assistance that provides benefits to people, households or families that have low incomes," according to the order's text. But its programmatic goals are considerably more modest, officials said. Many of the initiatives outlined have already been set into motion by the affected agencies, particularly the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has begun issuing waivers to Republican governors who want to impose stricter work requirements on Medicaid recipients as a way to reduce costs.
- Mainers Voted to Expand Medicaid Last Year. Could These States Be Next? PBS NewsHour by Harry Zahn - Republicans in Congress may have relented on their attempts to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act, but the battle has shifted to states. Citizens in Idaho, Utah, Missouri,and Nebraska have taken Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act into their own hands via ballot initiative campaigns, hoping to force statewide votes to either adopt or reject expansion this coming November. The campaigns to expand Medicaid via ballot have varied in scope and success. After Maine voters petitioned for and passed a first-of-its-kind expansion last November, campaigns in Idaho and Utah have gained momentum to expand Medicaid coverage. In Missouri, there was a longshot effort to gather 100,000 signatures to put expansion on the state ballot. The head of the campaign, Gary Peterson, couldn't get the state Democratic party on board, only mustering support from local church groups. He told the PBS NewsHour that he suspended his campaign in February. And in Nebraska, residents launched a petition drive to appeal to voters this November after six consecutive years of failed legislation. Where is the fight over Medicaid expansion now, and where will it go next? Here’s what we know.