AFP-IN Commends HHS Secretary for Approving Indiana Medicaid Work Requirements

Feb 2, 2018 by AFP

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Americans for Prosperity-Indiana (AFP-IN) on Friday applauded Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar for approving Indiana’s waiver to add work requirements for able-bodied adults under Medicaid. AFP-IN has consistently advocated for strengthening Medicaid by ensuring that it works better for the least fortunate Americans who the program was intended to help.

“This Medicaid reform is a significant step toward ensuring the program fulfills its original intent to improve healthcare access for our most vulnerable populations. These work requirements are appropriately tailored to empower individuals through work while ensuring Medicaid is fiscally solvent and preserved for those most in need,” said AFP-IN State Director Justin Stevens. “Indiana can become the model for the nation in entitlement reform by showing how innovation and restoring the dignity of work can improve the lives of countless Americans. We thank Secretary Azar and the Trump Administration for approving Indiana’s waiver request and enabling thousands of Hoosiers to break the cycle of government dependency.”

Background:

Medicaid was intended to help just the most vulnerable Americans like the elderly and the disabled, but its expansion to able-bodied, childless, working-age adults is creating an unsustainable burden on taxpayers and crowding out resources for those truly needy populations.

Medicaid expansion is simply not cost effective. Researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Dartmouth found that Medicaid recipients only receive 20 to 40 cents of benefit for every dollar spent on Medicaid. Insurance companies, not low-income citizens, are the biggest winners of Medicaid expansion. Kaiser Health News recently reported that Medicaid insurer profits more than tripled in 34 states and the District of Columbia after Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

However, welfare reforms that require able-bodied adults to work, train, or volunteer have a proven track record of increasing employment and wages while decreasing dependency.

Last year, Indiana submitted a waiver to the federal government seeking to implement work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients.

This is the first major policy move for Secretary Azar, who was just confirmed by the Senate earlier this month. Indiana’s waiver request would require certain able-bodied adults to work at least 20 hours a week for eight months of the year to receive Medicaid health care coverage. Indiana is the second state to tie its state Medicaid program with work requirements for able-bodied adults. Last month, Kentucky submitted, and was granted, a waiver request to implement Medicaid work requirements.

For further information or an interview, reach Lorenz Isidro at LIsidro@afphq.org or (703) 887-7724.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) exists to recruit, educate, and mobilize citizens in support of the policies and goals of a free society at the local, state, and federal level, helping every American live their dream – especially the least fortunate. AFP has more than 3.2 million activists across the nation, a local infrastructure that includes 36 state chapters, and has received financial support from more than 100,000 Americans in all 50 states. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org

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