Trump supports work requirement, lifetime limit
By Rachel Leingang | Arizona Capitol Times
Arizona is one step closer to instituting a work requirement and lifetime limit for Medicaid recipients, something the federal government has so far not approved but recently indicated it may.
The requirement calls for people receiving health care through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to be working, looking for work, training for employment or going to school in order to get benefits.
If the waiver is approved, recipients would be limited to five years of benefits over the course of their lifetimes.
More than 1.6 million Arizonans get care through AHCCCS.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Obama administration rejected the work requirements and time limit last year, saying they could deny care to those in need.
Arizona, which missed a statutory deadline to ask for work requirements and the lifetime limit earlier this year, sent a “concept letter” to Verma earlier this month, laying out the details of what its waiver will entail.
But the Trump administration has signaled support for such ideas. CMS administrator Seema Verma said in early November that her agency would approve work requirements if states asked for them.
