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Work requirement should be mandatory for healthy Medicaid recipients




Work requirement should be mandatory for healthy Medicaid recipients

Jul 18, 2018

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Requiring healthy, childless welfare recipients to work – or undergo job training – to continue receiving taxpayer-funded benefits is practical.
It's in the best interests of the taxpayers who fund the programs – whether that be Medicaid, food stamps or the like – and it's in the best interests of the individuals receiving the benefits, who by working or receiving job training have more and better opportunities to improve their own situations.
Medicaid is a government-run health insurance program initially intended for the disabled, the elderly and the poorest of the poor. Under Obamacare in 2012, states were allowed to voluntarily expand their Medicaid rolls to include many previously ineligible residents, including healthy, working-age adults with no minor children. Illinois was one of 31 states to jump on board.
Unfortunately, Medicaid expansion came with no work requirement.
A new study on the expansion, released last week, reveals the overall impact. The results are predictable, but still alarming.
Nationwide, 55 percent of the more than 12 million able-bodied people who joined Medicaid under the Obamacare expansion reported no income, meaning they're not working.
In Illinois, where about one of every four residents is on Medicaid, more than 400,000 out of the 580,00 Medicaid expansion enrollees reported no earned income, or 70 percent overall.
What's worse, the taxpayer funds that go to support Medicaid for nonworking, healthy adults are not going to those individuals who need it most.
“Based on this data, an estimated 6.8 million of the 12.4 million expansion enrollees nationwide are not working at all,” the report, from the Foundation for Government Accountability, states. “While these able-bodied adults remain on the rolls – refusing to work and consuming resources – nearly 650,000 individuals with developmental disabilities, spinal cord injuries, and other conditions remain trapped on Medicaid waiting lists for needed home-based services. Since expansion began, at least 21,904 individuals languishing on Medicaid waiting lists in ObamaCare expansion states have died.”
The FGA, a Florida-based public policy think tank, supports reasonable work requirements for healthy welfare beneficiaries. It cites research that shows that "the longer able-bodied adults spend on welfare, the more difficult it is for them to re-enter the workforce."
"Research has further shown that, after work requirements were implemented in other welfare programs, able-bodied adults went back to work in more than 600 different industries and their incomes more than doubled, on average," FGA's report says. "Higher wages more than offset lost welfare benefits, leaving individuals financially better off and spurring greater economic growth."
Critics say work requirements prevent those in need of health care from receiving it, particularly in rural areas. That's only the case if those seeking Medicaid benefits who are able to work aren't interested in trying to find it.
Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued new rules that allow states to apply for waivers to implement work requirements into their Medicaid programs. Since then, four states – Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky and New Hampshire – have been granted permission to implement the work requirements. Twelve other state have are either submitted or are preparing waiver applications.
Illinois isn't one of them, but it should be.
Even better, Congress should make Medicaid work requirements the law.
Taxpayer-funded welfare programs such as Medicaid are needed, make no mistake. They're needed to help those who can't help themselves.
It's reasonable to expect those who are able to help themselves do so if they want a taxpayer-funded benefit.
That's common sense.
Dan McCaleb is news director of Illinois News Network and the digital hub ILNews.org. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at dmccaleb@ilnews.org.


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