People with cancer / HIV could lose Medicaid under new work rules, advocates say

WarOnPrivacy

The strict Medicaid work rules that the White House released this week are likely to put ongoing treatments in jeopardy. States must put the work requirements into effect by January 1. States must "make the changes, test the changes to make sure they're not going to break the system, and then go live," "It takes states literally months — usually years — to make the types of changes to their systems that they needed to make for this new rule," The nearly 400-page interim final rule released Monday makes that process even harder. [During the previous] months, federal officials met with states informally and states understood that people with conditions where continuous health insurance coverage was really important would be exempt. "What the [new] rule says, as published, is that that's actually not enough," "The condition or the disease needs to be actively interfering with your ability to work. So people with early stage cancer who are in radiation treatment but still have the capacity to work, or people who have HIV but can still technically work, are not exempted from the work requirement." Dr Oz pitched this as "a path to prosperity"

susiecambria

I've been involved in social services public policy since 1997 and this one of the meanest, hateful, despicable sets of rulemaking I have ever seen. It's almost as though the president and his team hate poor people. Or maybe that it's that they are dismissive of poor people. I can't do anything to change the rules right now, but I can and will engage in a ton of GOTV work for elections this year.