As many as 109,000 Marylanders could get thrown off Medicaid if Congress follows through on a proposal to impose a work requirement for the coverage, according to a new report.
The report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation comes as some lawmakers are looking for ways to cut billions in federal spending in coming years. One proposal, to require that able-bodied adults work at least 2o hours a week to receive the benefits, would trim an estimated 7% of recipients — 109,000 people in Maryland, and about 5 million nationwide, the report estimates.
“That would be a significant amount of coverage lost,” said Katherine Hempstead, senior policy officer for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “And it would have really hard consequences for people who would lose their coverage.”
The study based its estimates on work requirement language in a 2023 bill, the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would have required Medicaid recipients to work at least 80 hours a month unless they were exempt as a student, a family caregiver or because of a disability.
The report comes as House Republicans and the Trump administration l0ok to cut billions in federal spending over the next decade. The budget resolution recently adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to cut $880 billion over 10 years.
Such reductions would likely require cuts to Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care plan for low-income residents – but exactly how those cuts would be implemented is yet to be decided. Work requirements is one of the options on the table, along with other measures to cut spending to Medicaid.
