Will Governor Snyder Sign a Measure that Could Kill The Medicaid Program He Created?
The Legislature approved work requirements for Medicaid coverage through Healthy Michigan. Will Governor Snyder sign?
Last week the state Legislature approved a measure that would require able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work, or risk losing their health coverage.
More than half of the 680-thousand Medicaid recipients in Michigan would be required to work under the plan. Governor Rick Snyder is reportedly supportive of the measure, and expected to sign it into law.
“All signs point to he is on board and is ready to sign this,” says Cheyna Roth, Capitol reporter with the Michigan Public Radio Network.
That’s particularly baffling because Governor Snyder spent a lot of political Capitol expanding Medicaid under Obamacare and created Healthy Michigan, which saw hundreds of thousands of people signing up for health coverage. If Governor Snyder signs this new measure into law, it puts Healthy Michigan at risk of collapsing altogether, and it would make Michigan one of only a handful of states in the nation to have a work requirement for Medicaid.
The others include Indiana, Kentucky and Arkansas, all among the poorest, least educated states in the nation.
“Work requirements simply do not work,” says Kyle DuBuc, director of public policy and advocacy at the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. “In the real world we aren’t addressing people’s needs… It’s not for a lack of trying that people are unable to achieve financial stability.”
To hear more from Roth and DuBuc on Detroit Today, click on the audio player above.
