work rules

In Georgia, state officials expected 345,000 people to apply for eligibility under its work rules; by late 2024, fewer than 4,500 people enrolled, in part because the administrative rules the state imposed were onerous.

Work rules for Medicaid are the product of a misconception about Medicaid enrollees, which is that they’re the employable unemployed.

The work rules did nothing to reduce joblessness, exacerbated a healthcare crisis, and raised administrative costs for the state.

That might account for why Arkansas, the one state that actually implemented work rules under the Trump administration, experienced no increase in either “employment nor the number of hours worked” among the Medicaid-eligible population, in the words of the Congressional Budget Office.

But the companies say they should not be forced to rehire employees who broke their work rules.