If you are on TennCare then you may have to put on your boots, roll up your sleeves and get to work if you still want your benefits, according to the Memphis-based WMC Action News 5.
“The state of Tennessee is asking the Trump administration to enact those requirements. They said it would apply to roughly 56,000 Tenncare recipients,” the station reported.
“However, there is concern about some details of the plan.
In an application to Medicaid in late December, state officials said Tenncare work requirements would not impact pregnant women, the elderly, disabled, or those with certain medical conditions.”
Tenncare’s plan, WMC went on to say, asks that recipients put in 20 hours a week of community service, education, or work for four out of six months.
Tennessee has 1.3 million people on Tenncare. The work program would affect only 56,000 of those recipients, the station said, without specifying further.
The idea for this comes from the neighboring state of Arkansas, WMC reported.
“Arkansas is the first state in the nation to implement a Medicaid work requirement and kicked more than 17 thousand people off Medicaid in 2018 for failing to report their work activities,” according to the station.
“Critics of that plan, which is being challenged in federal court, claimed the directions were too difficult for many rural Arkansans to navigate.”
WMC quoted Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson as saying this is about moving able-bodied people back to work.
WMC Action News 5 Political Analyst Michael Nelson told the station that “Tennessee’s request appears confusing, because the Volunteer state declined to expand Medicaid as part of the Obama Affordable Care Act.”
Arkansas, the station said, has expanded its enrollment.
“The President of the Tennessee Hospital Association and the American Cancer Society have both spoken out about concerns over Tennessee’s plan,” WMC reported.
“It’s not clear when the state will receive a decision.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Doctor Visit” by Vic. CC BY 2.0.
Wayne Mickel… first thing you should do is get off the drugs!
Here’s something even better – have the recipients submit to mandatory drug and alcohol testing. If they don’t stop, off they go.
If they smoke tobacco, they have to quit. If their daily diet consists of junk food, they need to get their cholesterol down and drop some weight to the national average for body mass index (which is a VERY easy threshold to meet.)
Give them a baseline, put them on a program, give them the training they need to make it work, and if they continue to abuse themselves then they need to start picking up the tab for it. Just that simple.
And while we’re at it, for everyone else, why not have health insurance premiums rated according to your health maintenance? Same deal, if you take care of yourself, great, you get a break on your premium – but if you don’t then your premium escalates so that others don’t have to pay for your sloth.
I think it is screwed up, states like Tennesee still support Israel with money and the money we send to Israel could be used here in America, Social Security should have trillions of dollars saved for disabled people and the retired people this does not come from the taxpayer it is what the Social Security is taken out for and for health care they take money out, h3elth care should be free if they take money out of your check it is time to start holding doctors and health care professionals accountable to what they charge the Insurance companies as it is it is a conflict of interest for some greedy bribed politicians and the AMA and Insurance companies.
OMG!!! Someone might have to do a do-nothing job to get “free” medial care. Now that is just down right unAmerican!!
OMG!!! Someone might have to work at do-nothing job to get medical care. What a novel idea.