Ark. cuts 4,300 from Medicaid under new work requirement

More than 4,300 Medicaid expansion enrollees in Arkansas will lose coverage for the rest of 2018 because they did not comply for three straight months with work and reporting requirements, state officials announced Sept. 12.

The low-income Arkansas adults losing benefits this month were among 27,140 people ages 30-49 notified in May that they were required to file a report confirming they spent at least 80 hours a month working, volunteering, going to school or receiving job training. Arkansas was the first state to implement such requirements.

Nearly 280,000 people are enrolled in Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion program, which has helped cut the state’s uninsured rate nearly in half.

Beneficiaries must report that they were either meeting the requirement or that they qualified for an exemption, such as a disability, through an online portal run by the state. The work and community engagement requirements will be extended in January to people ages 19-29.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who is hearing two legal challenges to work requirement rules in Arkansas and Kentucky, last week denied a Justice Department motion to consider the Arkansas suit as an unrelated case. That means Boasberg, who already has blocked the Kentucky work requirement, will also handle the Arkansas lawsuit. The Justice Department declined to comment on his decision.

At a news conference last week, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he would like to see fewer people losing Medicaid benefits under the new program. But the Republican said the state worked hard to help beneficiaries comply, and that nearly 1,000 people gained job training or employment as a result of the program. He added that dropping the 4,353 people from Medicaid would save taxpayers nearly $30 million in a year in Medicaid managed-care premiums.