Federal judge blocks Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements
The decision is a setback for the Trump administration, which has been encouraging states to impose work requirements and other changes on Medicaid, the joint state and federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
But Friday, U.S. District Judge
"The Secretary never provided a bottom-line estimate of how many people would lose Medicaid with (the new rules) in place. This oversight is glaring," wrote Boasberg, an appointee of former President
Boasberg ordered that
"In the meantime, we will continue to support innovative, state-driven policies that are designed to advance the objectives of the Medicaid program by improving health outcomes for thousands of low-income Americans," she said.
Obama's health care law gave states the option of expanding Medicaid coverage to able-bodied adults.
But Republican Gov.
Boasbert's decision blocks those rules, for now. Bevin did not comment on the ruling. But
The Trump administration had argued Obama's Medicaid expansion essentially created a new program under Medicaid. Allowing states to cover low-income adults with no children living at home changed the nature of the program, the administration asserted, and opened the way for provisions such as work requirements.
The national implications of Friday's ruling could take a while to sort out. Officials in
The drive to expand Medicaid in
Nationally, about 12 million people have been covered through expanded Medicaid, which offers health insurance to people making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line or about
State officials had spent months preparing to roll out the new rules, including printing and mailing eligibility notices to people impacted by the rule changes and identifying the 4,200 people in
Lots of people were exempt from the new rules, including pregnant women, full-time students, primary caregivers of children and the elderly and anyone designated "medically frail" — a broad term that includes people suffering from alcohol or drug addiction in a state that has been among the hardest hit by the opioid crisis. But Boasenberg said these protections were not enough for the Trump administration to "rubber stamp it."
Alonso-Zaldivar reported from
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