Trump administration to allow states to reimpose work requirements for Medicaid

President Trump and Seema Verma.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tuesday that the Trump administration would allow states to impose work requirements on non-disabled Medicaid enrollees, The Washington Post reports. In a speech to the National Association of Medicaid Directors, CMS administrator Seema Verma told the audience that "the thought that a program that was designed for our most vulnerable citizens should be used as a vehicle to serve working age, able-bodied adults does not make sense."

Verma blamed the Obama administration for fighting "state-led reforms that would've allowed the Medicaid program to evolve": Under former President Barack Obama, the qualifications for Medicaid coverage expanded to 138 percent of the federal poverty level for non-disabled individuals. States were also allowed to seek a federal waiver from work participation requirements for healthy enrollees.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.