Medicaid's work requirement crunch arrives

Medicaid is tightening eligibility this week as states begin enforcing new work requirements. Under the new rules, enrollees must report at least eighty hours a month of work, school, or volunteering — or they lose coverage. Nebraska is the first state to implement, ahead of a national deadline next January, and about two hundred people are already set to lose coverage there this week, according to Axios. Health advocates are raising serious concerns: the American Cancer Society found that ninety percent of cancer patients had to miss work due to illness, and three-quarters said it would be difficult to navigate the exemption process during treatment. Doctors also worry the rules will pile administrative burden onto clinicians already overwhelmed with paperwork, and projections suggest as many as seven million people nationwide could lose coverage by twenty twenty-eight.

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