According to the new report, 109,000 Maryland residents can escape Medicaid, following the proposal to impose business requirements for insurance applications.
This article was re -published under the permission of WTOP’s news partner. Maryland problem. Sign up Free email subscription of Maryland Problem today.
According to the new report, 109,000 Maryland residents can escape Medicaid, following the proposal to impose business requirements for insurance applications.
report In the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, some lawmakers are looking for ways to reduce billions of dollars in federal spending over the next few years. The report estimates that one proposal is to block 109,000 in Maryland and about 5 million people nationwide to request a competent adult to work for at least two hours a week.
Katherine Hempstead, chief policy officer at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said, “This will have a significant amount of coverage.”
This study is based on estimates of work requirements in the 2023 bill. Limit, storage, growth behaviorMedicaid recipients had to work for more than 80 hours a month unless they were exempted from students, family caregivers or disabilities.
The report has reduced billions of dollars in federal spending over the next decade with the Republican Republican Party and the Trump administration. that Budget resolution The US House of Representatives, recently adopted by the US House of Representatives, instructs the House of Representatives and Commercial Commissions to oversees Medicade to reduce $ 880 billion over 10 years.
These reductions will require cuts of Medicaid, a federal national medical plan for low -income residents. But it is not yet determined how the cuts will be exactly implemented. Working requirements are one of the options of the table and one of the other measures to reduce spending on Medicaid.
Hempstead said, “There is this exploration to find some budget cuts. The work requirements are one of the options that seem to collect slightly broader support than some other.
Supporters of work requirements say that this policy will help people to move people to manpower and save taxpayers.
The conservative think tank, a conservative think tank, said, “It is to move millions of talented adults from welfare to work.” In the post Early this week.
“This will allow taxpayers to save billions of dollars, preserve resources for the poor, and put Medicare and Social Security Trust Fund on a more solid basis.”
The House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA.) Said in a February interview with CNN, “We will not reduce the benefits for those who are qualified to receive correctly.”
“For example, you do not want a worker who can do a program for a single mother with two small children who want to make it,” he said. “This was not a 29 -year -old man sitting on the couch playing video games, but he tried to find them and send them back to work.”
But opponents of the work requirements say that these policies do not reflect federal officials in search of labor in order to maintain insurance applications through Medicaid.
The report focuses on the week that the Affordable Care Act has been expanded to increase Medicaid Insurance benefits, which can provide the scope of applications to households that can earn up to 138%of the federal poverty -level income. Maryland is one of 40 expansion.
The report estimates that if the Congress imposes business requirements to qualify for Medicaid, about 5 million people living in the state can lose their health care insurance. This is the same as about 6.9%of all 72 million men in Medicaid.
In Maryland, 95,000 to 109,000 out of 1.5 million registered in Medicaid due to work requirements can lose coverage.
The most people who can lose insurance benefits are California. California is affected by 1 million to 1.2 million of the current 14 million Medicaid winners. On the other hand, between 5,000 and 6,000 of North Dakota 104,000 Medicaid Winners According to RWJF estimates, the range of work may be lost due to work requirements.
But Hempstead is also concerned that the work requirements will be driven out of people from the ultimate qualified Medicaid. She says that people can often fall into bureaucratic documents, and people can impose taxes for those who rely on Medicaid because they have their work, finding work, or unable to work.
“Even if people accept the idea that people should try to get health insurance, what is caused by business requirements should not lose the scope of insurance coverage, caregivers, or other things, and lose insurance.”
Hempstead, on the other hand, mentioned that people without insurance pursue health care through other means of emergency room or charity, so those who lose their insurance benefits due to employment requirements will bear the hospital system. It can worsen Maryland’s long emergency room waiting time. Some of the highest things in the United States.
“There is a lot of leaks to the health care system. Because insurance is lost and people do not have health insurance, they try not to ignore things and not care for them.” If the situation is really bad, people will go to the emergency room and get people to be treated. “
Benjamin Orr of the Maryland Economic Policy Center said that business requirements are unproductive and will take health insurance from those who need it regardless of employment.
ORR said, “Our society is better when members are healthy,” he said. “The idea that we will refuse health insurance to Maryland people is unproductive to a healthy prosperous society.”
ORR also added that in a dark economic downturn, people would have difficulty finding jobs to meet their work requirements to maintain health insurance. He pointed out that Maryland was “especially sensitive,” the dismissal of other major institutions affected by the federal government and the Trump administration’s decision.
ORR said, “If it is not in the national recession, it is not a good time to find a job as it is in the scenes of the national recession.” Otherwise, even those who can find work in a healthy economy can struggle to find work. “
Hempstead agrees that the logic of work requirements is “upside down.”
“People can do more when they are healthy,” she said. “It’s a bad thing to be able to work to access health care.”