Last Thursday, states were given the green light to cut off Medicaid benefits if recipients are not employed.
Kansas and nine other states are already prepared to take full advantage of the allowance, approved by the Trump administration.
The move signals a huge tear in the social safety net that has provided for the disabled, elderly and low-income children. As never before, medical care will not be considered a right, but a privilege.
Kansas administrators maintain that the requirement will “improve” the lives of those who depend on Medicaid because being employed boosts self-esteem.
Such a condescending attitude refuses to acknowledge the challenges of poverty and perpetuates the long-standing myth that the poor are simply lazy.
In Kansas, an estimated 12,000, mostly young parents, will be the target, a small fraction of the 400,000 on its Medicaid rolls. Under the new waiver, Kansas can stop their health insurance coverage if they are not working 20 hours a week, as per welfare guidelines, or participating in a related activity.
BECAUSE the Medicaid program allows states to set their individual eligibility guidelines, Kansas sticks out as uniquely tightfisted.
In Kansas, a family of four cannot earn more than 38 percent of the federal poverty level — $9,063 annually — and qualify for Medicaid. The majority of states — 37 — allow incomes of at least 99 percent of the FPL to qualify for Medicaid.
So that extremely low threshold of assistance means that families are kicked off of Medicaid even when earning a pittance. The double whammy comes from the fact that they cannot qualify for a tax credit through the Affordable Care Act until they earn 138 percent of the federal poverty level, or $32,913.
For a young family in the throes of poverty, that’s a hefty salary way beyond their ken.
So what happens? They have no coverage, period.
That’s why thousands of Kansans have been begging their legislators to expand Medicaid. If done, it would allow parents to be eligible at an income level four times the current level.
On top of this inhumanity, those dependent on Medicaid in Kansas are limited to a total of three years of assistance over their entire lifetimes. This means coverage could be stopped mid-treatment if they have cancer or suffer from a chronic condition such as diabetes or are on dialysis.
Adding the work requirement has only one purpose — to further reduce access to care. And in Kansas, that care comes with an increasingly short leash.
