LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday she wants to impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients, hoping to revive and expand a restriction that was blocked by the courts but given modern life under Trump could administration.
Sanders’ comments come as other Republicans in several other states are calling for similar requirements as well as other cuts or restrictions on Medicaid, which serves about 80 million people nationwide.
More than 18,000 people lost their insurance coverage when Arkansas enacted work requirements back in 2018 under Sanders’ predecessor Asa Hutchinson. The requirement, which applied only to able-bodied adults under the state’s expansion program, was blocked by federal courts and the Biden administration.
Sanders said she would like to see a broader requirement that covers able-bodied adults on both conventional Medicaid and expansion.
“I have more confidence because it’s a new administration that I think will be more supportive of things like work requirements,” Sanders told reporters. “They have already expressed that publicly, and I believe there is a greater willingness to work with states to bring about change.”
Sanders is among a growing number of Republican governors who say they plan to impose similar requirements on the program. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said this week she would seek a similar mandate for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has asked the state’s health agency to seek reinstatement of their work requirement as soon as Trump takes office.
Another round of states imposing work requirements would likely trigger a modern round of litigation over the restriction. The renewed push for requirements comes as advocacy groups are concerned that Republicans in Congress are seeking broader cuts to the Medicaid program.
Republicans in Washington have long pushed for work requirements for the program, and a provision passed by the House in 2023 would have left more than half a million of the poorest Americans without health insurance.
Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families, said work requirements are counterproductive because they create a modern barrier for low-income adults.
“When people are able to manage their health problems, they are more likely to be able to work,” she said. “I think politicians are backing down while supporting a goal that most Americans support.”
The only state that currently has a work requirement for some Medicaid recipients is Georgia. Gov. Brian Kemp said he wants to allow parents and guardians of children up to age 6 in households that make 100% of the federal poverty level or less to enroll in Medicaid without meeting the requirement.
Republicans are seeking cuts in other states like Idaho, where some Republican lawmakers want to roll back the state’s expansion.
Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is going in the other direction, this week calling on the GOP-dominated Legislature to expand Medicaid. But Republican leaders are likely to block it.
Sanders, meanwhile, said she wants to keep the Medicaid expansion in Arkansas in some form. Arkansas was one of the few Southern states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and more than 200,000 people are enrolled in the program.
“I don’t think we’re at a point at this point where you can forego expansion,” Sanders said. “We’re too far away.”
___
Associated Press writers Charlotte Kramon, Hannah Fingerhut, John Hanna and Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report
