Failing to meet work requirement, 4,000 more Arkansans dropped from Medicaid

Another 4,109 people in Arkansas will be removed from the Medicaid program after failing to meet the state's work requirement, bringing the total number to 8,462 four months into implementation of the requirements, new state data show.

Arkansas was the first state to require certain Medicaid enrollees work or train for work as a condition of staying enrolled in the program. People on Medicaid in Arkansas have to log their hours online, and if they fail to do so, they are taken out of the program and are not allowed to re-enroll until the following year.

State officials said some people who didn't log their hours had moved to another state, obtained a job, or increased their salary and no longer qualified, while others had failed to either fulfill the requirement or to log it.

About 73,266 people on Medicaid were originally subject to the requirement to work, volunteer, or take classes as a condition of staying enrolled in the program, and 52,714 of them were exempt from reporting because they were already meeting the requirement or because the state exempted them.

The report from the state shows 1,532 people reported their hours and 16,757 did not. People are not kicked off of Medicaid until they fail to report for three consecutive months.

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