Work Requirements For Medicaid In NC? Trump Admin Says Let’s Hear Your Plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration is opening the door for work requirements for able-bodied recipients of Medicaid and North Carolina is one of several states that will submit demonstration plans for implementing such requirements.

“The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will open the door for states to impose work requirements for Medicaid recipients, in a major shift that could affect millions of low-income people receiving benefits.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services described the decision as a response to requests from states to test work requirement programs.

“Medicaid needs to be more flexible so that states can best address the needs of this population. Our fundamental goal is to make a positive and lasting difference in the health and wellness of our beneficiaries, and today’s announcement is a step in that direction,” CMS Administrator Seema Verna said in a statement.”

Another goal, not mentioned above, must be to make the Medicaid programs less of a financial drain on taxpayers. There is no justifiable reason to steal money from some, to give to others, let alone to give that money to able-bodied adults that are capable of supporting themselves.

““Our policy guidance was in response to states that asked us for the flexibility they need to improve their programs and to help people in achieving greater well-being and self-sufficiency,” Verma said, noting the agency has received demonstration project proposals from 10 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin.

The test programs, according to CMS, could make work, “skills training, education, job search, volunteering or caregiving” a requirement for Medicaid for “able-bodied, working-age adults.” It would not apply to those getting benefits due to a “disability, elderly beneficiaries, children, and pregnant women.”

[…]

Under current law, people are not legally required to hold a job or to be employed to receive Medicaid benefits, but states can request federal waivers to test new ideas for the program. The Trump administration’s latest action outlines guidelines that states should consider to have their proposals for waivers imposing work requirements federally approved. The waivers would be “demonstration projects.””

This will undoubtedly encounter stiff resistance from Leftists that think the government should take casr eof everyone from cradle to grave at the expense of hardworking taxpayers. They’ll play the race card, the class warfare card, and the compassion card – the full deck – in order to protect entitlement programs that are THE BIGGEST SOURCE of fiscal pressures on this country, and the biggest foothold for Leftists to leverage for bigger and bigger government.

“The Trump administration has been vocal about adding the new requirements for almost a year, but a study from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that more than half of working-age adults on Medicaid are already employed. Nearly 60 percent work either full time or part time, mainly for employers that do not offer health insurance.

[…]

“It is a very major change in Medicaid that for the first time would allow people to be cut off for not meeting a work requirement, regardless of the hardship they may suffer,” said Judy Solomon of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for the poor. The Obama administration would have never approved such waivers, she added.”

If nearly 60 percent of able-bodied Medicaid recipients are already working, that still means that 40 percent are not! Those that are not should be required to invest in themselves, contributing their own effort to achieve self-sufficiency.

This is a good start to bringing some common sense to such entitlements. With any luck, the Trump administration will continue to put pressure on such Big Government monstrosities.

With Republican majorities in North Carolina, there is a good chance that additional innovative reforms can make progress in filling the budget holes that Medicaid is often responsible for historically.

Read more here.

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