Tag Archives: work requirement

Fellow looks at how Medicaid work requirements have been implemented in Arkansas

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Benjamin Hardy, a reporter with the Arkansas Nonprofit  News Network and a 2018 AHCJ Health Care Performance Reporting Fellow,  has just written a How I Did It essay on his coverage of Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas.

While seven states have received CMS approval of work requirements, Arkansas is the first to put them in effect.  The rest are either being challenged in court, or in the implementation phase – or in question as a Democratic governor succeeds a Republican one. Several more states – eight, by my latest count – have requests pending before CMS and that number could grow. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In recorded comments, Verma reveals there is a backup plan if ACA is struck down

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File photo: Jeff Porter/AHCJSeema Verma

During an event on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said that there is a contingency plan if the courts were to strike down the Affordable Care Act, particularly the part that requires coverage of existing conditions.

AHCJ member Kimberly Leonard covered the remarks and reports that Verma declined to share details about the backup plan. Continue reading →

Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates AHCJ's social media efforts and edits and manages production of association guides, programs and newsletters.

States continue to expand Medicaid, with others possibly voting on the issue

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Image: The Kaiser Family Foundation’s State Health Facts

There’s been a spurt of Medicaid expansion activity in several states. Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia have approved expansion (including Maine – more on that below.)

Virginia is the most recent state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam ran last fall on a Medicaid pledge – and the balance of power in his state’s legislature shifted too, with the GOP still in control but now with narrow majorities in both chambers. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Health advocates, legislators wrestle with Medicaid work requirements

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Photo: Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Three states – Kentucky, Indiana and Arkansas – have now gotten permission from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to add work requirements to Medicaid. More are in the wings – possibly including two states with Democratic governors who are looking for some way to compromise with Republican legislators to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act .

In our latest tip sheet, TPM’s Alice Ollstein explains some of the debates reporters need to understand as they cover this topic. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Blog post considers how we talk about the ‘deserving’ vs. ‘undeserving’ poor

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Photo: Manar Hussain via Flickr

Medicaid work requirements going into effect in at least a handful of states will only affect the “able-bodied.” But precisely what does that mean?

Emily Badger and Margot Sanger-Katz unpack that term, as well as “deserving poor.” They say in“Who’s Able-Bodied Anyway?” for The New York Times’ Upshot blog, that the “able-bodied” are defined by what they are not – “ not disabled, not elderly, not children, not pregnant, not blind.”

Even so, this is a mushy label – more political than scientific. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.