Republicans are chattering once again about imposing work requirements as a condition for receiving Medicaid. The CBO has estimated the effect this would have:
This option would decrease federal spending...about $15 billion per year, on average, because about 2.2 million adults would lose Medicaid coverage. That reduction in enrollment represents a substantial portion of the adults who would be subject to the work requirements.
This represents a cut in Medicaid spending of less than 3%. Aside from symbolism and performative cruelty, what's the point?
"Aside from symbolism and performative cruelty..." That is the point.
Exactly
Yep.
As someone who works in a state medicaid program let me say work requirements are a solution looking for a problem. The vast majority of the spending in my state and I wouldn't be surprised nationwide is kids, ABD adults, and the elderly. Almost nothing is spent on people who would be in the workforce anyway.
...and how much more would we spend on loss due to the increase in administration, adjudication when that administration fails to do it, and emergency room visits?
This looks like one of those 'just die faster' sorts of catch-22s. Are they going to raise the income limits so a raise won't knock someone off the list?
Having worked in the Medicaid Long Term Care program in NJ and Pennsylvania for the past 30 years there is a tiny percentage of individuals who can actually work
Aside from symbolism and performative cruelty, what's the point?
Hahahahaha! Stop! Yer killin' me here! Hahahahahaha!
Aside from symbolism and performative cruelty, what's the point of ANY Republican fiscal policy or suggestion other than cutting taxes for the wealthy? What's the point of their continuous, loud, yet utterly and deliberately false "concern" about the national debt?
It's ALL symbolism and performative cruelty, mixed with a heavy dose of racism, wrapped in silly faux morality, and founded on permanent and increasing status anxiety.
Ladies and Gentlemen, your Republican Party in a nutshell.
+1
Yes.
If I may play Devil's advocate for a moment, there are a lot of Conservatives who are okay with social welfare programs but get really, really chapped when they feel that they are being played by people who can and should work but are free-loading off them. I think it's more an emotional desire not be played for a chump rather than a fiscal issue. Although that said, they ALSO tend to overestimate the amount of what they consider waste/fraud/abuse goes on and how much we would save if we could cut that out...
Indeed, but in this case I can't think of a better argument for universal coverage, since any opposition to Medicaid can only be based on "someone" getting something for free "that I have to pay for."
I can kind of understand that sort of thing when it comes to cash benefits, but health care is a bad target for it. The people who need health insurance most are too sick to work, and you can't eat, wear, or live in your health insurance, nor can you trade it for nice things. So free health insurance, by itself, still leaves people with plenty of incentives to work.
+1
If they can insure everyone gets a job they are physically able to do, sure. But they won't. This is not help, it's punishment.
3% would actually be a significant amount for a single policy change. However your arithmetic appears to be off by an order of magnitude.
Yup, thanks for pointing this out. But I think it’s only off by a factor of about two:
Per the Kaiser Family Foundation, total Medicaid spending in the US is $824 billion (link below).
$15b is about 1.82% of that.
https://www.kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/total-medicaid-spending/
And shapeofsociety’s comment above is dead on.
All things being equal, cruelty is the point. The Republicans would couch it differently, that they were just trying to reduce the population that would need Medicaid by encouraging work when in reality they just want to reduce that population by making it disappear entirely.