(Quin Hillyer, Liberty Headlines) The idea of requiring work or education in return for Medicaid benefits may be catching on.
A bill allowing states to impose such requirements, reported here at Liberty Headlines a week ago, has now been incorporated into the Obamacare replacement legislation that is expected to receive a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.
Its inclusion, by name, in Speaker Paul Ryan’s “manager’s amendment” already is being credited with attracting significantly more support for the overall legislation from conservative House members.
The original work-requirement bill was introduced March 9 by Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia. Modeled largely on successful provisions of the 1996 welfare reform bill that cut traditional welfare rolls in half, the bill would allow – but not compel – states to implement work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients. (The disabled, pregnant, and elderly, among others, would be exempt.) The states would have leeway to design the exact nature of those work requirements.
Above: U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer
Even before the new “work provisions” were officially included in the manager’s amendment, the promise that they would be included helped sway at least one documented conservative opponent into support to move the bill to the Senate for further consideration. Sophomore Republican Gary Palmer of Alabama, a policy expert who ran a conservative think tank for 25 years, had voted against Speaker Ryan’s original bill when it was presented last week to the Budget Committee. But after President Trump pledged to ensure that work requirements would be included, Palmer announced he would support the bill.
(In the earlier Budget Committee meeting, Palmer successfully authored a motion to allow work requirements, but it was merely a non-binding “sense of the committee,” so he still awaited confirmation that the change would be made in the bill itself.)….
