Indiana on Friday became the second state to receive permission from the Trump administration to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, joining Kentucky.
Once in place, the new requirements could affect roughly 130,000 Indiana residents receiving benefits, according to the state’s waiver application.
Eight other states — Arkansas, Arizona, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah and Wisconsin — have applied for waivers, which allow states to craft their own rules for Medicaid recipients, including the need to work, volunteer or be in school to maintain eligibility.
Indiana has been experimenting with new rules for the program for several years. Seema Verma, who currently runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, led a program in Indiana under then-Gov. Mike Pence that imposed monthly fees on Medicaid recipients, starting in 2015. A new analysis of that program, called Healthy Indiana, found that 25,000 adults lost Medicaid coverage after they failed to pay the required fees, according to Kaiser Health News. About half of those found coverage elsewhere, most through a job.
