Michigan Governor Accepts Medicaid Work Requirements

After running a campaign opposing work requirements for Medicaid, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) acknowledged she might have to live with them.

Michigan will accept the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services work requirement conditions for keeping Michigan’s expanded Medicaid program running, Whitmer said in a Feb. 8 letter to CMS administrator, Seema Verma.

Whitmer said she’d comply with the 80-hour-per-month work requirement on able-bodied Medicaid beneficiaries, set to begin in January 2020. However, she also promised to work with the Republican-controlled Legislature in an attempt to keep individuals from losing their insurance. Similar work requirements enacted in Arkansas caused ...