Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed Senate Bill 362 into law, which will reduce the harmful impacts of Medicaid work requirements and protect Michiganders’ access to quality health care.
“The Healthy Michigan Plan I worked to pass with Governor Snyder was a landmark bipartisan accomplishment, extending coverage to more than 680,000 people, increasing primary care usage, reducing dependence on emergency rooms, and strengthening our economy. But the work requirement legislation that passed last year puts that progress at risk,” said Whitmer. “The changes I signed today will reduce the number of people who must jump hurdles to provide proof of what they are already doing, but there’s more we must do to mitigate their harmful impact. I ask that the legislature work with me to protect coverage for thousands of Michiganders.”
Michigan has the most onerous work requirements in the nation. Earlier this year, independent analysis based on Arkansas’ experience suggested that as many as 183,000 people would lose coverage from Michigan’s requirements. Senate Bill 362 will help to lower this number by giving beneficiaries more time to verify compliance with the law and exempting people from reporting workforce engagement if the state can verify compliance through other available data.
In a signing statement, the governor called on the legislature to take additional steps to prevent coverage losses by enacting a provision that automatically suspends work requirements if data shows that significant numbers of Michiganders are on track to lose their health care due to the new compliance requirements.
“To my great regret, it now appears that the legislature is less interested in giving Michiganders the facts and the tools to comply with work requirements than in taking away Michiganders’ health insurance,” said Whitmer. “As a result, tens of thousands of Michiganders stand to lose needed health care and suffer medical and economic harms that responsible leaders could easily have avoided. I ask the legislature to work with me to prevent this outcome.”
A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that work requirements cause people to lose coverage and do not increase employment. The loss of health benefits caused by work requirements creates another employment barrier for many people who are trying to work, but find it difficult to do so because of a lack of supports and opportunity.
The Michigan League for Public Policy issued the following statement on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature of Senate Bill 362 into law today. The bipartisan legislation addresses some concerns with Healthy Michigan Plan work requirements taking effect in January 2020 and the high potential for inadvertent lost coverage for enrollees. The legislation gives beneficiaries more time to verify compliance with the law and exempts people from reporting workforce engagement if the state can verify their compliance through other available data. The statement can be attributed to Michigan League for Public Policy President and CEO Gilda Z. Jacobs.
“If a single person loses life-saving healthcare coverage inadvertently because of these work requirements, it’s one too many. The Michigan League for Public Policy has opposed work requirements for the Healthy Michigan Plan and Medicaid since President Trump wrongfully opened the door to them in early 2018, and we oppose them just as strongly today. We do support Senate Bill 362 and its intent to reduce red tape, provide some flexibility to the reporting requirements, and limit the potential harms of the Medicaid work requirements.
“However, the only true solution to fending off the alarming estimated coverage losses is to eliminate the Healthy Michigan Plan work requirements altogether. The governor and the Department of Health and Human Services are simply doing the best they can with a bad piece of policy they’ve inherited. And intentionally or not, the Legislature has further stacked the odds against the more than half a million people who depend on the Healthy Michigan Plan by nixing the governor’s $10 million funding request to help the department with outreach and education on the new rules and to provide work supports to enrollees trying to comply with the new rules.
“Confusion among beneficiaries not knowing they had to report hours—or even how to report them—has been the main reason for jaw-dropping coverage losses in other states, and for legal challenges that have blocked Medicaid work requirements in three of four other states that have implemented them. Now, instead of learning from these states’ mistakes and working with the governor to fund efforts to prevent them, the Michigan Legislature is setting us up to repeat those failures, harming residents in the process.”
