The following article by Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website January 28, 2018:
The Trump administration is calling Medicaid work requirements a positive “incentive” for beneficiaries, but critics say they’re a harmful double standard. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
Republican lawmakers in a half-dozen states are launching fresh efforts to expand Medicaid, the nation’s health insurance program for the poor, as party holdouts who had blocked the expansion say they’re now open to it because of Trump administration guidelines allowing states to impose new requirements that program recipients work to get benefits.
In Utah, a Republican legislator working with the GOP governor says he hopes to pass a Medicaid expansion plan with work requirements within the year. In Idaho, a conservative lawmaker who steadfastly opposed Medicaid expansion in the past says the new requirements make him more open to the idea. And in Wyoming, a Republican senator who previously opposed expansion — a key part of President Barack Obama’s health-care law — says he’s ready to take another look at fellow Republicans’ expansion efforts in his state. Continue reading “How Trump may end up expanding Medicaid, whether he means to or not”