The Trump administration has issued final rules on how states should ensure that millions of Medicaid enrollees prove they’re working or completing other activities, such as job training, volunteering, or being enrolled in an educational program.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the rules on June 1. That deadline was set last year in the GOP tax-and-spending law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which established a work requirement for certain people enrolled in Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities.
Medicaid agencies are scrambling to rework IT systems and make sure they have staff to effectively enforce the rules, while also keeping enrollees from losing coverage for administrative reasons, such as difficulty navigating state eligibility portals.
The newly announced regulations offer a clearer picture of what roughly 18.5 million Medicaid enrollees will have to do to prove they qualify for benefits.
Jim Torres, who helps people enroll in health coverage at the Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center in Kansas City, Missouri, said a “very small percentage” of his clients have heard of the changes coming to Medicaid.
