SPLC: Georgia Medicaid Work Requirements Will Keep Thousands in Poverty

ATLANTA, Ga - The Southern Poverty Law Center submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services opposing a proposed Medicaid waiver which mandates work and other requirements to secure Medicaid coverage.

While the proposal by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp would expand Medicaid, it would exclude healthcare coverage for hundreds of thousands of Georgia’s low-income residents. It would also impose work requirements on newly eligible enrollees, mandatory copays and monthly premiums, penalizing noncompliance by disenrolling enrollees or suspending their coverage. Kemp has not launched a full-scale expansion of the Medicaid program, which he can do under the Affordable Care Act, and without mandating onerous compliance requirements.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, National Health Law Program,  the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, and Legal Aid of Arkansas, have previously fought against similar waiver proposals in Arkansas and Kentucky.

The following is a statement by Emily Early, senior staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Economic Justice Project. 

“Governor Kemp’s so-called Medicaid expansion is a solution in search of a problem. It falls woefully short of what needs to be done and will keep thousands of Georgians in poverty. There is no need to do this. If Governor Kemp would launch a full-scale expansion of Medicaid it would provide untold benefits to the state and give people the help they need to lead healthy, productive lives and care for themselves and their families.”

A copy of SPLC’s comments can be found here.

More information about the lawsuit against Arkansas’ work requirements (Gresham v. Azar) can be found here.