Seema Verma, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator nominee for U.S. President Donald Trump, listens during a Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. Verma, the businesswoman Trump selected to oversee Medicaid, the health care program for 74 million low-income Americans, has said the program is structurally flawed by policies that burden states and foster dependency among the poor. Photo by Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Federal judge blocks Medicaid work requirements in Kentucky and Arkansas
WASHINGTON — A federal judge is blocking Medicaid work requirements in two states, dealing a blow to the Trump administration's efforts to push the poor toward self-sufficiency.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued two decisions Wednesday finding that Medicaid work requirements for low-income people in Arkansas and Kentucky pose numerous obstacles to getting health care that haven't been adequately addressed by federal and state officials.
He sent the federal Health and Human Services Department back to the drawing board.
Work requirements are already in effect in Arkansas, but Kentucky's program has been on hold because of lawsuits.
Advocates for the poor say Medicaid is a health care program, and work requirements have no place.