Tracking Medicaid Patients’ Work Status May Prove Difficult For States
“States must begin verifying millions of Medicaid enrollees’ monthly work status by the end of next year — a task some critics say states will have a hard time carrying out.
A provision in the tax and spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law July 4 will require the 40 states plus Washington, D.C., that have expanded Medicaid to check paperwork at least twice a year to ensure those enrollees are volunteering or working at least 80 hours a month or attending school at least half time.
The new law provides states $200 million for fiscal year 2026 to get their systems up and running. But some experts say states will have difficulty meeting the deadline with that funding and worry enrollees might lose their health benefits as a result.
A year and a half to comply is likely not going to be enough time for most states, especially since the federal government must craft guidance on how they should implement their programs, said Dr. Benjamin Sommers, a health economist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He predicted it will be difficult to create technology simple enough — such as a phone app — to streamline the process for all enrollees.
“Two hundred million [dollars] is not going to cover the 40 expansion states that we have,” he told Stateline. “There is not a silver bullet here, and there isn’t a single app out there that’s going to keep people who should be in Medicaid from losing coverage. That’s just not realistic.”
Read more at Stateline.