Illustration: Sarah Grillo / Axios
House Democrats warn in a new report that millions of people would lose Medicaid coverage under work requirements being considered by the GOP.
Why it matters: Requiring work as a condition for receiving benefits is widely supported in GOP circles and almost certain to be included in some form in a reconciliation bill.
- Republicans say the requirements encourage people to get jobs and lift themselves out of poverty.
- But Democrats are arguing that a shift Republicans may view as low-hanging fruit would still lead to significant coverage losses.
Driving the news: "Congressional Republicans are considering imposing burdensome federal red tape requirements on tens of millions of Medicaid enrollees — leaving millions of them uninsured," the report from Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats said.
- In 2023, CBO estimated that a GOP work requirement proposal would cut federal funding for 1.5 million Medicaid enrollees and cause 600,000 of those to become uninsured. The savings were $109 billion over 10 years and "hours worked by Medicaid recipients would be unchanged," per CBO.
- Democrats asked CBO to update its estimates using Georgia's recent Medicaid work requirement program as a model.
- The scorekeeper's revised preliminary estimate is that 2.5 million people would become uninsured and savings would be $260 billion, according to the Democratic report.
- That assumes a system in which the work requirement is imposed at the time a person applies for Medicaid coverage, "thereby preventing anyone who cannot get through the maze of red tape from ever enrolling in Medicaid," the report states.
