The Medicaid Experiment in Arkansas: Thousands Lost Coverage, Few Gained Jobs

[mfcorey1]

WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — With the help of Medicaid, Stanley Ellis got two hip-replacement surgeries and other care to treat a condition that causes bone tissue to die.

But earlier this year, after an emergency ambulance trip to a hospital here for splitting pain in his shoulder and head, a nurse delivered upsetting news: He had lost his coverage due to a new state work-requirement rule.

“I was hurting so bad, I couldn’t even react,” said Mr. Ellis, a 42-year-old former diesel mechanic who had thought he was exempt from the requirement because he is disabled.

Mr. Ellis is one of more than 18,000 people who were cut from the Medicaid rolls after Arkansas embarked on a closely watched experiment in June 2018, when it became the only state to fully implement a work requirement for program recipients. The outcome in Arkansas could help shape the future of Medicaid, a state-federal program for low-income and disabled people that covers one in seven adults across the U.S. President Trump and Republicans promote the mandate as a way to rein in safety-net costs and increase employment.

In a blow to the GOP, a federal judge in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in March blocked Arkansas’ Medicaid work requirement, saying federal officials didn’t adequately consider its potential to cause recipients to lose coverage.

The federal government appealed the decision, and oral arguments over the Trump administration’s legal authority to approve Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas and Kentucky took place in appellate court Friday. The same lower-court judge also has ruled against Medicaid work requirements in Kentucky and New Hampshire.

Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the work requirement was showing promising signs before the judge halted it, but officials hadn’t gathered enough data to gauge its impact on employment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/healthtrending/the-medicaid-experiment-in-arkansas-thousands-lost-coverage-few-gained-jobs/ar-AAIIazH?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

[LonePirate]

1. It's working exactly how the GOP wants it to work.

[ck4829]

2. "Potential to cause recipients to lose coverage" - That means it works according to the GOP

It is like the only metric they needed.

[ananda]

3. Exactly as planned.

A war on the poor.

To the GOP, the poor don't matter.

I've never seen such cruelty in my life!

[usaf-vet]

8. As a retire IT consultant we use to describe it like this. It's not a bug it's a [hidden] feature.

[kairos12]

4. Rethug health plan

If you are sick, just die.

If you are poor and sick, just hurry up and die already.

[Perseus]

5. But they will vote for republicans again when the time comes

That, unfortunately, is the stupidity of the USA voters.

[roamer65]

6. How many did the Rethugs kill?

That’s the goal of their crap like this...for us to die.

[mountain grammy]

7. As is said so sweetly in the South..

"bless his heart. we'll pray for him"