Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has proposed a way to keep Medicaid from freeloaders. She has asked the Federal Government to approve a Medicaid work requirement.
She explains it thus: “The requirement is simple: If you want to receive free health care, paid for by your fellow taxpayer, able-bodied, working age adults have to work, go to school, volunteer, or be home to take care of their kids. 220,000 able-bodied, working age adults in Arkansas receive free health care courtesy of the Arkansas taxpayer. It costs us more than $2.2 billion each year and growing. Of those recipients, estimates show that nearly 90,000 have no job. Most Arkansas work hard to pay for their health insurance but many of these healthy adults don’t work at all and receive it for free. That’s not how the system should work.”
She says that Arkansas businesses have a worker shortage and that the state should no longer “pay people to sit on the sidelines.”
Arkansas tried this during the first Trump administration but it was held up in court so Huckabee Sanders is trying again.
Could this actually work to encourage a strong workforce in Arkansas? And would it lower tax rates for the working people of the state? It’s a great idea, we will watch it with keen interest!
