Just in time for the election, Scott Walker gets Trump's permission to kick thousands off Medicaid
The Trump administration has done what Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker was seemingly hoping it would put off until after the election: approved a waiver for the state to impose work requirements on its Medicaid enrollees. A few weeks ago, federal officials were grousing to Politico about how they were ready to do it, and Walker was putting them off.
Maybe that public pressure forced Walker's hand, because it's done now, and now thousands of Wisconsinites are in danger of losing their coverage if they can't meet the reporting requirements the state is creating. One thing Walker didn't get from the administration, remarkably, is the power to further humiliate the state's low-income people by also forcing them to take drug tests in order to keep their benefits.
The state will now also be able to start charging Medicaid enrollees monthly premiums of up to $8, as well as $8 co-payments for emergency room visits for problems that aren't considered emergencies. Medicaid enrollees between the ages of 18 and 49 who are able-bodied and childless and earning as little as $500/month will have to pay those premiums. That's in addition to meeting the work requirements, working or participating in work-related activities for at least 80 hours per month for 48 months. About 62 percent of current enrollees already do meet those requirements, and about 43 percent of those who aren't working are ill or have a disability. The problem isn't having to work; the problem is having to report to the state, a bureaucratic hurdle that is difficult for many to surmount. It's one of the reasons nearly 8,500 people in Arkansas have lost their coverage in the past two months.
Any way you slice it, the prospect of thousands of Wisconsites' health care being threatened days before the election is not helpful to Walker. At all. Which might be one of the reasons he threw a Hail Mary he can't possibly follow through on this week. He announced that no matter what happens with the federal government and the Affordable Care Act, he will try to work to codify protections in the Act for people with pre-existing conditions in the state. Except he can't do that, at least not in total, because federal ERISA law prevents states from regulating private self-insured plans, so, as the Journal Sentinel reports, "any protections passed by the Legislature would not apply to hundreds of private companies in Wisconsin that self-insure."
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/2/1809191/-Just-in-time-for-the-election-Scott-Walker-gets-Trump-s-permission-to-kick-thousands-off-Medicaid
