Latest news with #workrequirement
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Millions of Californians may lose health coverage because of new Medicaid work requirements
The nation's first mandated work requirement for Medicaid recepients, approved by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump, is expected to have a seismic effect in California. One estimate from state health officials suggests that as many as 3.4 million people could lose their insurance through what Gov. Gavin Newsom calls the "labyrinth of manual verification," which involves Medi-Cal recipients proving every six months that they are working, going to school or volunteering at least 80 hours per month. "It's going to be much harder to stay insured," said Martha Santana-Chin, the head of L.A. Care Health Plan, a publicly operated health plan that serves about 2.3 million Medi-Cal patients in Los Angeles County. She said that as many as 1 million people, or about 20% to 40% of its members, could lose their coverage. The work requirement will be the first imposed nationwide in the six-decade history of Medicaid, the program that provides free and subsidized health insurance to disabled and low-income Americans. It's relatively uncharted territory, and it's not yet clear how the rules will shake out for the 5.1 million people in California who will be required to prove that they are working in order to qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid. After the 2026 midterm elections, millions of healthy adults will be required to prove every six months that they meet the work requirement in order to qualify for Medicaid. The new mandate spells out some exceptions, including for people who are pregnant, in addiction treatment or caring for children under age 14. Democrats have long argued that work requirements generally lead to eligible people l osing their health insurance due to bureaucratic hurdles. Republicans say that a work requirement will encourage healthy people to get jobs and preserve Medicaid for those who truly need it. "If you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money," said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. "And you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video games all day." Only three U.S. states have tried to implement work requirements for Medicaid recipients: New Hampshire, Arkansas and Georgia. One study found that in the first three months of the Arkansas program, more than 18,000 people lost health coverage. People can lose coverage a variety of ways, said Joan Alker, a Georgetown University professor who studies Medicaid. Some people hear that the rules have changed and assume they are no longer eligible. Others struggle to prove their eligibility because their income fluctuates, they are paid in cash or their jobs don't keep good payroll records. Some have problems with the technology or forms, she said, and others don't appeal their rejections. Of the 15 million people on Medi-Cal in California, about one-third will be required to prove they are working, the state said. Those people earn very little: less than $21,000 for a single person and less than $43,000 for a household of four. The state's estimate of 3.4 million people losing coverage is a projection based on what happened in Arkansas and New Hampshire. But those programs were brief, overturned by the courts and weren't "a coordinated effort among the states to figure out what the best practices are," said Ryan Long, the director of congressional relations at the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative think tank that has become influential among congressional Republicans. Long said advancements in technology and a national emphasis on work requirements should make work verification less of a barrier. The budget bill includes $200 million in grants for states to update their systems to prepare, he said. Arguments from liberal groups that people will lose healthcare are a "straw man argument," Long said: "They know that the public supports work requirements for these benefits, so they can't come out and say, 'We don't support them.'" A poll by the health research group KFF found this year that 62% of American adults support tying Medicaid eligibility to work requirements. The poll also found that support for the policy drops to less than 1 in 3 people when respondents hear "that most people on Medicaid are already working and many would risk losing coverage because of the burden of proving eligibility through paperwork." In June, Newsom warned that some Californians could be forced to fill out 36 pages of paperwork to keep their insurance, showing reporters an image of a stack of forms with teal and gold accents that he described as "an actual PDF example of the paperwork that people will have to submit to for their eligibility checks." Many Californians already are required to fill out that 36-page form or its online equivalent to enroll in Medi-Cal and Covered California, the state's health insurance marketplace. Experts say it's too soon to say what system will be used for people to prove their work eligibility, because federal guidance won't be finalized for months. Newsom's office directed questions to the Department of Health Care Services, which runs Medi-Cal. A spokesperson there said officials are "still reviewing the full operational impacts" of the work requirements. "The idea that you are going to get a paper submission every six months, I'm not sure people have to do that," Long said. Georgia is the only state that has implemented a lasting work requirement for Medicaid. Two years ago, the state made healthcare available to people who were working at least 80 hours per month and earned less than the federal poverty limit (about $15,000 for one person or $31,200 for a household of four). More than 100,000 people have applied for coverage since the program's launch in July of 2023. As of June of this year, more than 8,000 people were enrolled, according to the state's most recent data. The Medicaid program has cost more than $100 million so far, and of that, $26 million was spent on health benefits and more than $20 million was allocated to marketing contracts, KFF Health News reported. Democrats in Georgia have sought an investigation into the program. The Inland Empire agency that provides Medi-Cal coverage for about 1.5 million people in San Bernardino and Riverside counties estimated that 150,000 members could lose their insurance as a result of work requirements. Jarrod McNaughton, the chief executive of the Inland Empire Health Plan, said that California's 58 counties, which administer Medi-Cal, "will be the ones at the precipice of piecing this together" but haven't yet received guidance on how the eligibility process will be set up or what information people will have to provide. Will it be done online? Will recipients be required to fill out a piece of paper that needs to be mailed in or dropped off? "We don't really know the process yet, because all of this is so new," Naughton said. In the meantime, he said, the health plan's foundation is working to make this "as least burdensome as possible," working to improve community outreach and connect people who receive Medi-Cal insurance to volunteer opportunities. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Forbes
28-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
One More Worry For College Students: Medicaid Work Requirements
Millions of undergraduate and graduate students are on Medicaid. getty 'The uncertainty is really scary,' says Garth Bittner, a 28-year-old studying aerospace engineering at College of the Canyons, a community college in Santa Clarita, California. So scary, that he actually read through parts of the 800-plus-page tax and budget bill President Trump signed into law on July 4th. Surprisingly, Bittner wasn't looking for answers about the new law's $307 billion in cuts to the student loan program over the next decade, which (among other things), will make repaying loans on income-based payment plans more burdensome. Instead, he was focused on the law's $911 billion in Medicaid cuts, specifically a new 'work requirement' slated to take effect at the start of 2027 and projected to save $326 billion over the next decade, largely by kicking people off the program. Millions of undergraduate and graduate students now rely on Medicaid for health coverage. Students who attend school more than half time, should, in theory, meet the new work requirement. But yet-to-be issued rules and procedures, along with paperwork problems and administrative snafus, could put many of them at risk. The new work requirement is contained in what Republicans have dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and applies to the more than 20 million adults who receive coverage as part of the Medicaid expansion that was part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (popularly known as Obamacare). The Supreme Court ruled the expansion was voluntary for the states, which administer Medicaid. Nevertheless, 40 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Medicaid expansion, which allows adults with income up to 138% of the poverty line ($21,597 for a single individual in 2025) to qualify for Medicaid. According to a recent report from Congress' Government Accountability Office, between 2010 and 2022, the share of undergraduate and graduate students who were uninsured shrank from 19% to 9%. Some of those coverage gains came from a provision in ACA that allows young adults without their own health coverage to stay on their parents' employer-provided health insurance until they are 26. But even more came from Medicaid expansion. In 2022, the GAO found, 13% of all college students, up from 7% in 2010, were covered by Medicaid. Equally telling, according to the GAO, 12% of college students in states that didn't expand Medicaid lacked coverage in 2022, twice as high as the percentage who went uninsured in the expansion states. (Some colleges offer their own health plan and require all students to be insured, while others don't.) Under the newly-passed work regime, technically called 'community engagement compliance,' Americans aged 19 through 64 will have to prove at least twice a year that they're working, volunteering or in a work training program for at least 80 hours a month, or enrolled in an educational program at least half-time. Those who are caring for a child below 14 or have a medical condition that makes work impossible can qualify for an exception. Republicans tout the new requirement as a way to get able-bodied people to join the workforce and ultimately become self-sufficient. But Democrats and many health policy experts warn that millions of otherwise eligible recipients (including those who are working or going to school) will lose coverage because of bureaucratic gotchas. 'The bottom line of what everyone expects is there's going to be massive paperwork and massive confusion,' says Leighton Ku, the director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University. The OBBA provides that students who can prove they're enrolled in a higher education program at least half-time will meet the community engagement requirement. But it doesn't define what constitutes half-time enrollment. In fact, that's just one of many issues specific to college students that will need to be clarified by either federal regulations, or in federal guidance to the states (which they then would interpret), before the work requirement takes effect at the start of 2027. Besides the short time frame, experts see another problem: States may not have (or be ready to spend) the money needed to set up efficient verification systems that don't cut eligible people off. The new law provides just $200 million in federal funds to help states build the infrastructure for tracking Medicaid work requirements in fiscal year 2026. But they'll likely need to spend a lot more to develop adequate systems. For example, Georgia, which implemented a Medicaid work requirement in July 2023, has spent nearly $100 million setting up the program, including an estimated $55 million to develop a digital system for verifying eligibility. Andrea Ducas, the Center for American Progress' vice president of health policy, ticks off a series of still unanswered questions that will affect college students on Medicaid. 'What constitutes half-time enrollment? Does that enrollment also extend to times that you're not in the school, like if you're on a summer break, or if you're a student that isn't continuously enrolled in a program, but goes during different semesters.' It's still unclear, she notes, what will happen to students who are enrolled in an educational program when they apply or submit paperwork to requalify for Medicaid, but weren't enrolled the month before. That's because the legislation states that when eligibility is redetermined every six months (or more frequently if states choose), states are required to 'look back' for at least one month to determine if the applicant met the work requirement or qualified for an exemption in the previous month. Just as they can choose to redetermine eligibility more than twice a year, states can choose to look back for multiple consecutive months. Those lookbacks could hurt college students whose schedules change over the course of the year, worries Carolyn Fast, The Century Foundation's director of higher education policy. 'You could see a situation where a student who wasn't enrolled [in school] over the summer or wasn't enrolled for one semester is going to have trouble either getting enrolled [in Medicaid] or staying enrolled,' she says. Bittner takes a full course load at College of the Canyons. But he shares the experts' concerns about getting caught by the frequent recertifications and look backs. 'Do you have to time it so that you're enrolling (in Medicaid) when you're in school and potentially going summer without health insurance? Nobody knows,' he says. 'You're going to have to submit more paperwork to show that you go to school more often and if anything goes wrong, and things always go wrong with these programs, you could lose it and then it takes forever to get somebody to correct it.' As a resident of California, Bittner might have less to worry about than students in some other states. GW's Ku says a lot could depend on how states chose to implement the verification process, including the frequency of checks, number of months they look back and types of data used. 'They could say 'Gee, for July and August you weren't in school half-time, so therefore you didn't meet the requirement,' he observes. But a state could also opt to check only twice a year with a one-month look back or accept a student's two-semester course schedule as adequate, despite the summer break. Adrianna McIntyre, an assistant professor of health policy and politics at Harvard University, offers additional unknowns: What types of educational programs will count towards the requirement? And how difficult will it be for those who work part time and attend school part time to meet the 80 hour requirement? The legislation permits people to combine qualifying activities to reach the requirement, but she fears some students who are enrolled in one or two classes and work part-time could struggle to compile the necessary paperwork to prove their eligibility every six months. 'These requirements create more homework for students. The government is giving them homework on top of their schoolwork,'' McIntryre observes. 'A lot of people just aren't going to successfully navigate that.' Allie Gardner, a senior policy analyst on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' health policy team, points to another requirement that could trip up students on Medicaid. In addition to proving they meet the work/school requirement at least twice a year, Medicaid expansion recipients will also need to prove at least twice a year (up from once a year) that their income still qualifies them for Medicaid with separate documents. So even if states set up systems that automatically verify education status, they may not automatically verify students' income. 'Basically everyone, including college students, may be hit with this double paperwork burden of having to prove compliance with the work requirement while also completing a full redetermination of eligibility,' Gardner says. (This more frequent income recertification is expected to save another $63 billion, on top of the savings from the work requirement.) Some states already have online portals for Medicaid enrollment, but Gardner says some folks seeking coverage report difficulties using these websites and opt for mail. That presents yet another gotcha for college students: They could miss notices if they use their home address while at school, but also risk losing coverage from their home state if their school address is out of state. 'Let's say because they want to make sure they get their mail for their renewal to meet the paperwork burden, [a student] submits their college address in another state. That could trigger the state thinking that someone is now enrolled in a Medicaid program out of state and they could lose Medicaid coverage,' Gardner says. That means, she adds, that it will be crucial for states and universities to communicate state-specific policies, but they can't even formulate these policies until they get federal guidance. That 'makes the timeline to implement work requirements in the next year and a half very difficult,' she adds. The correlation between heightened paperwork and qualified people never getting –or losing– Medicaid coverage is strong, as demonstrated in Georgia, the only state that currently has a work requirement through its Pathways to Coverage program (which it adopted instead of a standard ACA expansion for poor, able-bodied adults). As of May, only about 7,500 of the nearly 250,000 theoretically eligible people in Georgia were enrolled, with critics largely attributing low enrollment numbers to heightened paperwork. 'I think that the overall story of Georgia is proof of how somebody could leave home, go to college, not be able to afford the student insurance, and not be able to get Medicaid coverage they are otherwise eligible for because of all of the paperwork burdens,' Gardner says. Leah Chan, Georgia Budget and Policy Institute's director of health justice, says students in Georgia have a comparatively easier time than others when it comes to the new systems. That's because if they submit an official course enrollment schedule at the start of a semester, it exempts them from reporting hours monthly. Plus, as students, they likely have an easier time navigating an online system than older or less educated folks. But students aren't immune from problems. In June, the Georgia group spotlighted the case of a graduate student and former social worker who lost coverage after having problems with the website and then struggling to get help through to the state call center. 'There's glitchy technology, there's overburdened caseworkers who aren't able to answer your questions,' Chan says. 'So people are still falling through the cracks because of the added paperwork and the bureaucratic red tape.' Chan says states will need to establish not only tech systems for tracking eligibility, but also high quality phone-based and in-person support for Medicaid users and outreach programs to make sure people know what forms they need to submit. 'People call them startup costs, but really what we're seeing is that making modifications to the eligibility enrollment system is an ongoing cost, and so that is something that I think states are going to need to be mindful of,' Chan says.
Daily Mail
16-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Britain's benefits crisis: 3.6MILLION people are on Universal Credit with no obligation to seek work - FIVE TIMES higher than before Covid
Some 3.6million Brits are getting benefits with no obligation to seek work after an extraordinary surge since Covid. Nearly half of all the 7.9million people on Universal Credit have 'no work requirement', compared to fewer than 700,000 in January 2020. Meanwhile, numbers classed as searching for employment while they get handouts have slumped to 1.6million. That is despite UC claims swelling by 1.1million over the year to June. The grim figures underline the scale of sickness issues blighting the UK economy, with ministers struggling to get a grip on spiralling spending. Keir Starmer was forced to gut a £5billion package of reforms earlier this month after a massive revolt by Labour MPs. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said UC claims with 'no work requirements' overtook 'searching for work' as the largest conditionality regime in April 2022. It said the increase was down to people making new claims as well as moving across from the old Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The government has pledged to scrap work capability assessments for UC by 2028 in a bid to toughen the rules, but not said what will replace them. For the first time the government released a breakdown yesterday of how many immigrants are getting the benefit. The data showed that 1.2million UC claimants had EU settled status, were refugees, arrived under a humanitarian route or had limited or indefinite leave to remain as of June. That was up from 1.1 million a year earlier. The majority of migrants being paid UC are not in work - a situation campaigners described as 'unsustainable'. Some 83.6 per cent of those on the benefit were British, Irish, or live or work in the UK without any immigration restrictions. The Tories said they have a 'clear, common-sense position' that UC 'should be reserved for UK citizens only'. The Government said it had 'inherited a broken welfare system and spiralling, unsustainable benefits bill' and was working on reforms including tightening rules on who can claim. The Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday they will double the amount of time it takes to apply for settled status from five years to 10, limiting eligibility for the benefit. Asked whether Sir Keir wants to see the number of foreign nationals claiming benefits while unemployed reduced, his official spokesman said: 'Absolutely, we both want to see the overall numbers of immigration reduced and we've set out plans for that through the Immigration White Paper. 'Within that, we also want to see people making a contribution to the UK, and that's why in the White Paper we set out that we will be doubling the amount of time it takes to apply for settled status. 'That actually means that typically you can only access universal credit after you've lived here currently for five years, and we're doubling that to a starting point of 10 years, so that will obviously reduce those numbers.' The DWP said it had published the breakdown of immigration status 'following a public commitment to investigate and develop breakdowns of the UC caseload by the immigration status of foreign nationals in receipt of UC'. People can access UC only if they have an immigration status that provides recourse to public funds. Those with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) cannot claim most benefits, tax credits or housing assistance that are paid by the state. Asylum seekers do not have access to UC as they have NRPF but those granted refugee status – deemed to have been forced to flee their country because of a well-founded fear of persecution, war or violence – can claim the benefit. While refugees on UC had the lowest rate of employment at 22%, the department said those who have only recently been granted refugee status cannot be in employment at that point as asylum seekers are not permitted to work.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What documentation is required for Medicaid in New York state? A guide
Paying attention to the documentation required to apply for and sustain Medicaid coverage in New York is more important than ever under President Donald Trump's tax cut and government spending bill. That's because the federal bill includes a $1 trillion reduction in spending over the next decade for Medicaid, the state-federal government insurance program for low-income Americans. And a big chunk of those cuts involve imposing a nationwide Medicaid work requirement that takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. The legislation requires "able-bodied" Medicaid recipients to work 80 hours a month or qualify for an exemption, such as being a student, caregiver or having a disability. The work requirement applies to parents of children older than 13. Further, the bill requires states to double Medicaid eligibility checks to twice a year. And states, which administer Medicaid, would have to set up systems to verify a person's employment or exemption status. While it remains unclear exactly what state regulators would use to verify Medicaid recipients are meeting the new work requirement. Below are key details to know about the Medicaid enrollment process under the current state-run program. Medicaid, like all 'means-tested' programs where eligibility is based on income and assets, requires extensive documentation to establish eligibility, state records show. Proof is required to verify identity, residence, citizenship, disability (if the applicant is under 65 and is claiming to have a disability), marital status, income and resources and, in some cases, other information which may be necessary for an eligibility determination. The documentation includes: Personal identification — Birth certificate; baptismal certificate; hospital certificate of birth; passport or immigration papers; current driver's license. Financial information — Documentation must be submitted to verify all sources of earned and unearned income. The applicant's total monthly income will be compared against the Medicaid income standard to determine if the applicant has excess income. Applicants with excess income are offered Medicaid under the Surplus Income Program. Those income records include: Award letter from a benefits program; copy of check from benefits program; pay stubs showing earnings; bank statement of interest earned. More: 58% of NY's rural hospitals were at risk of closing. Now more are in danger. See the list Asset and resource statements for the last 36 months — Medicaid requires all applicants to open their financial history to a review process. The purpose is to see if the applicant has any unreported income or whether there are any large withdrawals that are not allowed by the Medicaid program. This documentation includes: savings bank books checking statements stock and bond certificates life insurance policies burial fund, burial plot, or funeral agreement deed to real property If the documents requested by the Medicaid agency are not obtainable, the applicant should present any substitute evidence available to establish eligibility. Medicaid is jointly responsible with the applicant for exploring all factors concerning eligibility and should assist the applicant. There are various Medicaid enrollment assistance programs through NY State of Health, the state-run health insurance marketplace. That includes assistors and brokers who are certified experts who provide free and personalized Medicaid application and enrollment assistance to individuals, families, and small businesses. Politics: House GOP-led committee probing whether NY 'unlawfully abused' Medicaid. What they allege To speak with the NY State of Health marketplace customer service center call (855) 355-5777. You can also call the the Medicaid helpline (800) 541-2831. There are also staff members at local Department of Social Services Offices devoted to aiding with the Medicaid enrollment process. A list of those offices is available through the Health Department's website, at That Social Services list includes the Monroe County offices at 111 Westfall Road, Rochester (585) 753-2750 and Westchester offices at White Plains District Office, 85 Court St., White Plains (914) 995-3333. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Medicaid in NY: What documentation is required? A guide, what to know
Fox News
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Republicans praise 'big, beautiful bill's' work requirement for Medicaid: ‘We've got to get back to work'
While Democrats predict major problems with a provision within the "one big, beautiful bill" that adds a work requirement for adults to be eligible for Medicaid, Republican senators are praising the requirement, saying, "We've got to get back to work." The provision requires able-bodied, childless adults between the ages of 18 and 64 to work at least 80 hours a month to be eligible to receive Medicaid benefits. Individuals can also meet the requirement by participating in community service, going to school or engaging in a work program. "We have folks back home right now harvesting wheat that are working 20 hours in a day," Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. "We want you to go to college, we want to volunteer, work 20 hours a week, it brings dignity, it brings purpose to your lives. Work is a great thing; it's nothing to be ashamed of." "Seven million healthy American men out there of working age are not working right now," Marshall continued. "We happen to have seven million open jobs as well. I think I want to do everything I can to help those seven million men find a job. Whether that's through an education or community colleges, technical colleges, I think there's lots of opportunity out there." Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said "the disincentives to work are a real problem here in America." "It's amazing that Democrats are trying to make this argument," he said. "I don't think that taxpayers should be footing the bill at all for able-bodied citizens. And certainly, non-citizens should not be getting the benefit of this." "We need to incentivize work," Hagerty went on. "And certainly, you don't want to be incentivizing a burden on taxpayers." "We've got to take care of the people that need to be taken care of and it's just unfortunate you've got a lot of freeloaders in this country," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. Tuberville claimed that many of those he deemed as freeloaders "are coming from the younger ranks because they've grown up, they've got all these student loans, they got a degree that's not worth anything, they can't get a job or they don't want to work and so the way they've done they've turned into socialists, they started living off the government." "We can't have that. We've got to get back to work. This country is built on hard work," he said. Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he also agrees with the work requirement, telling Fox News Digital that "quite honestly, what we're trying to do is stop enrollment in that Obamacare addition to Medicaid." "They call it Medicaid expansion, but it's Obamcare. It was Democrats' way of trying to turn us into a single-payer system. And so, it incentivized the states to sign up single able-bodied individuals," he claimed. "As a result," he went on. "We've created all kinds of [what] I would call legalized fraud on the part of states … Now that they've designed their budgets around that scam, now they're screaming when we're trying to end the scam." Additionally, while Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., expressed that "of course, we should always eliminate any kind of fraud and that kind of a waste," other Democrats were much less enthusiastic about the work requirement. "That provision is not designed for efficiency or to save people money that provision is designed to kick people off of Medicaid, like don't believe the hype," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. Murphy claimed that Republicans "have built a work requirement that they know people won't be able to satisfy because they hate the idea that Medicaid actually helps the working poor in this country." "So, there's going to be a whole bunch of people who work for a living who are not going to be able to comply with those provisions and are going to lose their healthcare, even though they're working," he said. "That's the intent of the provision and everybody should just be honest about that." Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., indicated that the provision will "kick 17 million people off of health insurance." "These are life and death situations that people are making," he said, adding, "This legislation is going to kick 300,000 of my constituents off of their health care coverage." "These are people that I've spoken to that can't afford it," he continued. "They have no money in their budget to go and buy health care. So, then they got to make a decision between eating and their rent, or they just don't go to the doctor." James Agresti, president of Just Facts, a public policy research institute, told Fox News Digital that despite Democrats' claims about the work requirements, he believes reality tells a different story. "The notion that able-bodied adults without young children cannot work, get an education, or volunteer for 20 hours a week is absurd," he said. "Murphy's rhetoric is refuted by decades of experience with other welfare programs that have work requirements, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families," he explained. Agresti said that according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 1.4 million noncitizens and 9.2 million able-bodied adults who won't work or are engaged in fraud will be removed from Medicaid eligibility. A spokesperson for Kelly's office told Fox News Digital that "a bunch of actual experts and media outlets correctly interpreting that same CBO report" estimate that 11.8 million people will be without health insurance by 2034 because of the provision, plus an additional 5.1 million because of the bill ending expanded Affordable Care Act credits. In response, Agresti said the bill "doesn't revoke the expanded Obamacare subsidies, which were a temporary COVID-era handout that Democrats enacted in the American Rescue Plan and extended in the Inflation Reduction Act." "Even the New York Times has reported that adding these numbers into the tally for the big, beautiful bill 'is an exaggeration' and not 'the real number,'" said Agresti. He also said that numerous studies have proven that the disincentive to work is a real problem in America. "Even Lawrence Summers, Obama's chief economist and Clinton's Treasury Secretary, has written that 'government assistance programs' provide 'an incentive, and the means, not to work,'" he said. Murphy's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
