WASHINGTON – The Biden administration on Thursday rejected work requests for Medicaid recipients in Georgia, the last state to have a federal exemption from such restrictions, when it extended the withdrawal of a Trump administration’s signature health policy.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announcement, delivered in a 79-page letter to the Georgia Health Department, also reversed a federal exemption that allowed the state to charge premiums for the health insurance program for the poor.
The Medicaid agency said the worsening coronavirus pandemic and the emergence of the Omicron variant had made Georgia’s labor needs “not feasible in the current circumstances” as Covid cases increased.
“Georgia’s work demands significantly undermine the effectiveness of the state demonstration in promoting coverage for intended beneficiaries,” a Medicaid agency statement said. “The ongoing health consequences of Covid-19 infections further exacerbate the damage to these coverage barriers for people on low incomes.”
The decision was also in line with President Biden’s larger political goals and dealt a decisive blow to an already harrowing effort to link Medicaid to job demands. The movement of more than a dozen states has managed in practice to enact work requirements in just a few – and only for a short time – as it faced setbacks in court, a pandemic, and a new government that is continually dismantling such initiatives has.
Georgia hadn’t yet imposed the proposed work requirements – which limited entitlement to Medicaid to those who work at least 80 hours a month – but according to correspondence between state and state health officials, it could have started the restrictions as soon as next week.
The premiums proposed by Georgia have not come into force either. The Medicaid agency said it would revoke its authority to collect the premiums because those fees “could create an obstacle to coverage” and worsen health inequality.
Katie Byrd, a spokeswoman for Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, criticized the reduction in bonuses and job requirements, which she believes is intended to “create a fair and balanced framework for health care that increases opportunities and decreases costs.”
“Although they tried to hide behind the holiday two days before Christmas, we plan to challenge their misguided – likely political – decision in court,” Ms. Byrd said in a statement.
