10,258 enrollees take hit on work

D.C. hearing set in Medicaid suit

More than 10,200 Arkansas Works enrollees failed to meet the program’s work requirement last month as more enrollees were obligated to comply, the Department of Human Services reported Friday.

Meanwhile, a federal judge set a hearing for March 14 in Washington, D.C., on a lawsuit contending President Donald Trump’s administration exceeded its authority under the laws governing Medicaid when it approved the requirement last year.

Kevin De Liban, an attorney with Legal Aid of Arkansas, said attorneys for the Arkansas Works enrollees who filed the lawsuit have asked the judge for a ruling in the case before April 1, when the next round of coverage terminations resulting from the requirement is scheduled to start.

The Jonesboro-based group is one of three organizations representing the enrollees in the litigation.

De Liban said that the latest numbers provide more evidence that “imposing the work requirement on individuals is nearly an automatic guarantee that they’re going to be noncompliant and ultimately lose coverage.”

Gov. Asa Hutchinson hadn’t had a chance to study the latest numbers on Friday afternoon, but is “pleased with the outreach efforts” by the Human Services Department to educate enrollees about the

requirement, spokesman J.R. Davis said.

“Obviously, we’ll closely monitor it,” he said.

To meet the requirement, enrollees must spend at least 80 hours a month on work or other approved activities, unless they qualify for an exemption, and report their activities over the phone or through a state website, access.arkansas.gov.

Enrollees who fail to meet the requirement for three months during a year are kicked off the program and barred from re-enrolling for the rest of the year.

Of the 105,158 enrollees who were subject to the requirement in January, just 543 complied by reporting the hours they spent on activities such as working, volunteering or looking for a job.

An additional 94,357 enrollees were found to be exempt, either based on information in state records or that they reported in January or earlier.

The most common exemption, applied to 50,107 enrollees, was for those whose reported incomes indicate they work at least 80 hours a month at the state’s minimum wage, which increased Jan. 1 from $8.50 to $9.25 an hour.

Other exemptions apply to enrollees with a dependent child in their home or who were considered “medically frail.”

Human Services Department spokesman Marci Manley said she didn’t have information Friday on how many exemptions were based on information from state records or that the enrollees had reported before January.

De Liban said the option, added in December, for enrollees to report their activities or exemption status over the phone, rather than through the website, doesn’t appear to have improved compliance.

Trevor Hawkins, another attorney with the organization, said he let the phone ring for 30 minutes before finally giving up for the day while trying to help a client report work activities on a Saturday earlier this month after the enrollee’s online account became “locked.”

He said that he’s helped clients report over the phone a few other times and that each time took at least 30 minutes, with much of the time spent on hold.

“It’s as lengthy a process as it could possibly be,” he said.

Arkansas Works covers people who became eligible for Medicaid when the state extended coverage in 2014 to adults with household incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level. That income cutoff is currently $17,236 for an individual or $35,535 for a family of four.

Most enrollees receive the coverage through private plans, with the Medicaid program paying most or all of the premium.

Total enrollment in the program fell from Jan. 1 to Feb. 1 by 530 people, to 233,870, according to another Human Services Department report released Friday.

Of the 18,164 enrollees who lost coverage due to the requirement last year or on Jan. 1, 1,452 have since re-enrolled. That includes 11 who were deemed eligible for the traditional Medicaid program rather than Arkansas Works.

The state phased in the work requirement last year for most enrollees ages 30-49 and began phasing it in for enrollees ages 19-29 last month.

Department officials initially said the requirement would apply only to enrollees with household incomes at or below the poverty level.

But last month the department

added the requirement for enrollees ages 30-49 with higher incomes.

The requirement is now being phased in for all enrollees ages 19-29, rather than just those in that age group with household incomes at or below the poverty level.

Not all of the enrollees with higher household incomes are exempt, Manley said, because the exemption from reporting is based on the income of the individual, rather than of the household.

The 10,258 enrollees who failed to meet the work requirement in January included 735 who had household incomes above the poverty level, she said.

Manley said the department decided to impose the requirement on the higher-income enrollees because the federal government hasn’t yet granted the state’s request to exclude them from the program altogether.

In addition to meeting the

work requirement , those with higher incomes must pay premiums of $13 a month.

Those who fail to pay premiums incur a debt to the state but don’t lose coverage.

The enrollees who failed to meet the requirement in January included 1,363 who had left the program by Feb. 7 for reasons unrelated to the requirement.

The remaining 8,895 enrollees who didn’t meet the requirement last month will lose coverage for the rest of 2019 if they incur two more months of noncompliance during the year.

Manley said the department’s efforts to educate enrollees about the requirement include a plan to spend about $60,000 on paid advertising, including ads in newspapers, inside buses and on the Internet. The department will also submit public service announcements to television stations, she said.