Under Trump, Many States Might Pursue Medicaid Work Requirements Arkansas was one of 13 states that received permission to impose work rules on at least some Medicaid recipients during the last Trump administration. Nine additional states requested permission to enact Medicaid work requirements during Trump’s term but had not won approval by the time it ended. When the Biden administration came into office, it rescinded all the approvals. But now that Trump is coming back, many of those states will try again — and they’ll have a supportive U.S. Congress in their corner. Requiring states to establish Medicaid work rules, as many Republicans would like to do, would cut federal spending by an estimated $109 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s because the cost for about 900,000 people would shift entirely to states, while another 600,000 people would become uninsured, CBO estimated. About 72.4 million people are enrolled in Medicaid. |