Arizona is preparing to impose new Medicaid work requirements on some adults, raising concerns that the state could face another difficult rollout of public-benefit reporting rules after recent changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA) beginning Jan. 1, 2027,...Arizona News
According to a new Issue Brief from Georgetown University, new Medicaid work-reporting requirements are likely to confuse low-income parents. Parents who qualify for AHCCCS under Arizona's caretaker relative category are not subject to impending 2027 Medicaid work-reporting requirements.
According to research from ...
A federal judge has rejected the effort from a coalition of 25 states, including Arizona, to enjoin a rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that would require patients to prove "medical frailty" in order to obtain an exemption from the federally mandated Medicaid work requirement authorized by the One Big Beautiful...
Medicaid work requirements were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA) as a means to offset the bill spending, meaning that the goal is for enrollees to lose coverage as a direct result of the program. In Arizona, up to 500,000 enrollees in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) will be...Arizona News
Prior to the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which authorized the creation of national rules for Medicaid work requirements, Arizona was primed to implement a work requirement for eligibility on its own. In the finalized rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services suddenly altered the guidance for exemption...Arizona News
As details come into focus of the federal work requirements that will be imposed on state Medicaid programs next year, health systems are preparing for how the cuts will undermine their bottom line.
The new rules, released earlier this month, detail a much stricter work requirement program than initially predicted, and many recipients...CMS Rules
The provision getting the most attention in the interim final rule is that HHS declined to give states flexibility to create additional categories of "medically frail" Medicaid beneficiaries exempt from the new work requirements. The agency said the five exemption categories established in federal law are broad enough to cover...Arizona News
With the Medicaid work requirement guidance deadline looming, the advisory panel that reports to Congress on Medicaid voted to recommend that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should develop a plan for monitoring and evaluating Medicaid work requirements and how these policies affect eligibility, enrollment, spending,...CMS Rules
On December 8, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) posted preliminary guidance for the Medicaid work requirements mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which passed into law on July 4 this year.
The law requires the creation of new rules by June 2026 and CMS notes in the guidance overview that further...National News
States must enforce Medicaid work requirements by January 1, 2027, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have yet to issue guidance for compliance for states eager to start planning its implementation.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) cuts nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending over a decade in part by adding...Arizona News
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will implement Medicaid work requirements across all 50 states as part of a major cost-cutting initiative, but this week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on the one state that already has a work requirement program -- Georgia -- and found that it spent twice as much on...Top of The Day
The webinar covers the brass tacks of the program's changes, like structure, compliance, verification and expectations. It then goes on to cover implementation considerations like harm limitations and a deep dive into work requirement exemptions and medical frailty.
President Donald Trump's signature legislation for his second...Arizona News
On Monday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate released their own version of legislation for President Donald Trump's agenda. The bill would cut Medicaid even more aggressively than the bill passed by the House of Representatives but eases up on subjects that are not health related.
The new proposal released by the Senate Finance Committee...
The Republican spending bill has spent the week under review after succeeding through the House of Representatives last week.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its findings on the bill that aims to slash government spending in order to float massive tax cuts promised by the Trump administration. Modern Healthcare reports...
Congressional Republicans have reached a tentative agreement on the shape that a budget reconciliation bill could take, and it includes significant changes to healthcare funding with Medicaid cuts at the center of the plan. The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a legislative text that includes work and reporting requirements...
This week, Congressional Republicans continue the search for Medicaid tax cuts, this time by returning to reductions of the federal match and the implementation of a per capita spending cap to the negotiating table. It remains clear that Medicaid work requirements alone will be insufficient for total cuts, especially as plan utilization...
We know that Medicaid cuts are on the table for the upcoming Trump budget negotiations, but until recently, the form that those cuts would take was unclear. Now, consensus among supporters of the cuts appears to be coalescing around work requirements for state Medicaid programs, despite decades of data demonstrating that they are...Arizona News
The waiver application aligns with Arizona legislation passed in 2015 that requires AHCCCS to request (annually) the federal agency's approval to institute a work requirement for all “able-bodied adults” receiving Medicaid services, place a lifetime limit of five years of Medicaid benefits on “able-bodied adults” and develop and...Arizona News
During Wednesday's State Medicaid Advisory Committee (SMAC) quarterly meeting, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System announced it had submitted a waiver to enact work requirements for an estimated 190,000 Arizona Medicaid members.
In 2017 AHCCCS submitted a 1115 waiver for AHCCS Works which was approved by CMS in 2019. The...National News
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget framework Tuesday night that includes instructions to apply heavy cuts to the Medicaid program.
The budget framework instructs committees to cut certain amounts from departments they oversee. The Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees health programs, was instructed to cut $880...
