CMS ADMINISTRATOR SEMMA VERMA: “This opportunity is designed to promote the program’s objectives," Verma says of Trump plan to slash Medicaid funding for poor beneficiaries.

The Trump administration has rejected a proposal from Kansas to place a lifetime cap on individuals’ Medicaid benefits, the nation’s top Medicaid official announced at a meeting of the American Hospital Association on Monday.

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has approved waiver requests this year from three red states seeking to make Medicaid more conservative by imposing work requirements on the insurance program. (Arkansas is one of those three.) But on Monday, Verma indicated CMS found Kansas’s proposal — which sought to impose a three-year limit on Medicaid benefits for those individuals deemed capable of working — to be too extreme even for the current administration.

Advertisement

Research indicates a majority of adult, non-elderly, non-disabled Medicaid recipients work full time or part time. Kansas’ proposed policy would have simply locked them out of the program entirely, for life.

“We seek to create a pathway out of poverty, but we also understand that people’s circumstances change, and we must ensure that our programs are sustainable and available to them when they need and qualify for them,” Verma said, according to The Hill.

Advertisement

Liberals praised the announcement. “The decision on the Kansas time limits proposal that Seema Verma announced today is the right one,”  Eliot Fishman, senior director of health policy for advocacy group Families USA, said. “CMS should apply this precedent to all state requests to impose time limits on any group of people who get health coverage through Medicaid—including adults who are covered through Medicaid expansion. Time limits in Medicaid are bad law and bad policy, harming people who rely on the program for life-saving health care.”

Invest in the future of great journalism in Arkansas

Join the ranks of the 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts who know that the Arkansas Times is the go-to source for tough, determined, and feisty journalism that holds the powerful accountable. For 50 years, our progressive, alternative newspaper in Little Rock has been on the front lines of the fight for truth, and with your support, we can do even more. By subscribing or donating to the Arkansas Times, you'll not only have access to all of our articles, but you'll also be helping us hire more writers and expand our coverage. Don't miss out on the opportunity to make a difference with your subscription or donation to the Arkansas Times today.

Previous article Rock Region METRO gets new director Next article Today’s headlines and your open line