7,000 people fail to meet Arkansas Medicaid work requirement

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Andrew Demillo, Associated Press
Updated 6:57 pm CDT, Friday, July 13, 2018

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — More than 7,000 people on Arkansas' Medicaid expansion didn't meet a requirement that they report at least 80 hours of work in June and face the threat of losing their coverage if they fail to comply sometime before the end of this year, state officials said Friday.

Arkansas' requirement took effect last month. Participants in the program lose coverage if they don't meet the work requirement for three months in a calendar year.

The Department of Human Services said most of the more than 27,000 people on the expansion program who were notified they were subject to the new requirement were exempt or met the requirement. The federal government earlier this year approved the state's plan to impose the work requirement as part of Arkansas' expansion, which uses Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance for low-income residents.

"The first report is encouraging," Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. "We are only two months in, and those on Arkansas Works are still learning the system. DHS has worked hard to make sure that everybody understands the requirements and how to comply."

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/7-000-people-fail-to-meet-Arkansas-Medicaid-work-13074153.php

[Honeycombe8]

1. That's just so wrong. So wrong.

It breaks my heart. Someone who was laid off or fired, is older, has health problems...some of them will not be able to get work. And they need Medicaid maybe more than those who can get work. And it can take a year to get qualified for disability. Horrible. Cruel.

[leftofcool]

2. Yes, it is wrong. Many of these same people, however, supported the Governor and Trump

I feel for the older person who has lost a job due to health reasons and can't find another one because of those same health reasons but my sympathies only go so far. People vote against their own self interests and when they do, how sympathetic are we supposed to be?

[Honeycombe8]

3. You may be right. It IS Arkansas. But some are Dems. After all, AR elected Clinton.

It's not as red as Alabama and Louisiana and parts of TX, not to mention Mississippi, I think.

I would think older people know that Republicans are anti-social Security & anti-Medicare. Maybe they think it's just talk.

[leftofcool]

6. Hubby and I both have Social Security and Medicare.

We are both well aware of what might happen if Paul Ryan and Trump have their way. I think you are right about many older folks.

[hibbing]

4. Medicaid funds (taxpayer dollars) to pay for private (for profit) insurance

American capitalism at its best. Socialize the cost and privatize the profits.


Peace

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Socialize the cost and privatize the profits: Excellent slogan. . . . nt

[appalachiablue]

5. New rules & cuts to federal benefits yet WH says War on Poverty is 'largely over'

Last edited Sat Jul 14, 2018, 12:41 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016210806

-The American March to Inequality* Why UN Alston Report Alarms Trump Plutocrats-

It is no surprise that flacks for the plutocrats in charge of the US like Nikki Haley are squawking about the report on American poverty just issued by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston. It throws loads of light on how unequal a society America is, how it is marching rapidly toward even greater, Third World levels of inequality, and how peculiar the US is, as a land of rapacious robber barons and 40 million completely marginalized poor.
Big social statistics are hard to envision. That in a country like the US, with some 320 million people and an $18 trillion annual gross domestic product, the social statistics could be rapidly changing is also hard to fathom.
They are changing, the UN says, decidedly for the worse for tens of millions of people.

*The GOP tax massacre of earlier this year will transfer over time trillions of new dollars to the already obscenely wealthy, and result in diminished government services and A MUCH SMALLER SAFETY NET for the rest of us. It was a tax cut, almost all of the benefits of which, went to one-tenth of one percent of the population. It will make them even richer, adding billions to their billions, and make the rest of us poorer. This is a structural change in US society with massive implications. *Already, the top 0.1% holds as much of the country’s wealth as the bottom 90% (i.e. almost everyone reading these words). Alston writes: *US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world... https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016209206

[TheFrenchRazor]

8. yep, but what do we expect when our government is owned by the .1%? they work for themselves

and their paymasters, not for the rest of us.

[TheFrenchRazor]

7. what about people who are too sick to work that much, or even at all? and getting SSDI

disability classification and benefits isn't exactly easy or cheap, even if you have a bona-fide serious illness. auto-immune conditions are notoriously hard to diagnose and "prove," but they can be extremely debilitating.

[area51]

9. This is obscene.

We need single-payer health care NOW.

[marble falls]

11. I wonder how many AR legislaters worked 80 hrs this summer.