House kills bill adding Medicaid work rules

By Ramsey Scott

Wyoming Tribune Eagle

Via Wyoming News Exchange

CHEYENNE — The bill to place work requirements on a portion of Wyoming's Medicaid recipients failed on a final vote Wednesday in the House of Representatives.

The bill had received overwhelming support in the Senate, but the House voted 39-20 against it on third reading. 

Senate File 144, sponsored by Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, would have required able-bodied Medicaid recipients age 19-64 to put in 20 hours a week through a combination of work, schooling, workforce training or volunteering with a local nonprofit. If the criteria weren't met, those people could have lost medical coverage for up to six months before being allowed to reapply if they came back into compliance.

If SF 144 had passed, it would have authorized Wyoming to request a waiver from the federal government to institute the new work requirements. 

Backers of the bill argued Wednesday on the House floor the bill was really about supporting able-bodied people so they could rejoin the workforce. SF 144 had been described by supporters as an act of kindness, providing people with the encouragement to experience the benefits of volunteerism or the dignity of work. 

Rep. Scott Clem, R-Gillette, reiterated an argument he's made throughout the process, citing his own battle to get back to work after becoming disabled at a young age. He wanted SF 144 to pass in order to help push people out of self-pity and into the uplifting benefits of employment. 

"This is more of a hand up than a handout," Clem said. "It is amazing what a little bit of activity will do for your life, whether that's volunteering, getting a little education (or) getting a little workforce training."

When SF 144 was debated in the House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee earlier this month, Clem had argued against removing the lockout period for recipients who were unenrolled. He said there needed to be "some kind of punitive measure" against people who were stealing a state resource.

Rep. Chuck Gray, R-Casper, said the bill had been crafted to only capture people who could fulfill the work requirements, which he described as not even really work requirements at all. Instead, the bill created eligibility requirements, which included work and volunteering. 

"I think it's very important to note in terms of what qualifies is that we have volunteering to qualify," Gray said. 

"That's one of the key points of this bill that I think is so important, that volunteering qualifies. In many ways ... it's not really a work requirement."

The failed bill would have made exceptions for pregnant women and someone who is the primary caregiver of someone who has a serious medical condition or disability. The work requirements also wouldn't have applied to a parent or guardian of a child 8 or younger. 

But opponents of the bill won the day. Many who spoke Wednesday against SF 144 said it would hurt a population that already struggled to get by every day. 

Speaker Pro Tem Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, got emotional near the end of his comments about how SF 144 would affect someone in his town who deals with mental health issues. And getting a medical professional to diagnose and say they're unable to work is hard to do in their small town. 

"There's no medical doctor, there's no medical psychologist in Pinedale to make this certification by a health-care provider. And the person volunteers, and they work some, but not every week are they capable of doing that," Sommers said. 

Majority Leader Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, said if the Legislature wanted to look at reforms to how it delivered care and assistance, it should be an "inclusive" process that brought in multiple stakeholders to address the entire issue. He said he would take up the topic of human service reform during the interim to look at all options for improvement.

A Kaiser Family Foundation study of Arkansas, where a work requirement was put on some Medicaid recipients, found more than 18,000 people were dropped from Medicaid coverage due to non-compliance. One reason the study found for people not meeting the requirement was a lack of information and communication from the state about the new requirements.å