Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Abstract

The 2010s have been a momentous decade for Medicaid. With enrollment of over seventy-two million people (19% of the country’s population), Medicaid is the nation’s largest public health insurance program, and it is the primary or sole source of health insurance for vulnerable groups such as low-income children and pregnant women, adults with disabilities, and people in need of long-term care. Since 2014, the pendulum of Medicaid policy has swung from an unprecedented expansion of coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), toward more recent federal regulations and state policy innovations that are instead predicted to limit uptake of benefits.

These developments have raised questions about the purposes and scope of the Medicaid program, which are central to ongoing litigation over state Medicaid waivers. Under § 1115 of the Social Security Act, states can seek approval from the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement demonstration projects in Medicaid programming. States have previously used this waiver pathway to expand coverage and benefits, to incorporate incentives for healthy behaviors, to charge copayments and premiums, and to make delivery system modifications. Beginning in 2018, however, HHS has approved numerous state demonstration projects that make eligibility for some beneficiaries contingent on work requirements: the completion of monthly quotas of work, education, or volunteering hours to stay on Medicaid. Although work requirements have long been a prerequisite for accessing federal cash welfare and nutritional assistance, their use in Medicaid is a historic first.

Disciplines

Fourteenth Amendment | Health Law and Policy | Insurance Law | Law

Comments

This article originally appeared in 119 Colum. L. Rev. Online 302 (2019). Reprinted by permission.

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