The budget bill recently passed by the House requires childless people receiving health care through Medicaid to document that they work 80 hours a month.
The work requirement is shortsighted and cruel.
The vast majority of people on Medicaid either do work, or are elderly, children, care-takers or disabled and thus are not expected to. In fact, only three percent of the Medicaid population do not work.
But the paperwork involved will complicate people’s already burdensome lives. It is estimated that 14 million people will lose their health care if the work requirement goes into effect.
We also know that most part-time workers do not control their hours, with work assignments that can be wildly unpredictable, varying from week to week.
People who lose health care are less employable. Imagine finding or holding a job with an untreated broken bone or neglected diabetes. We should view health care as an investment that helps the community and the individual, like libraries and public education.
This is just one of many terrible provisions in a bill that follows the old Republican playbook of taking from the poor to ease taxes on the rich. And despite all the cuts, this budget is projected to increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion over 10 years.
And where are the deficit hawks in Congress who pledge to oppose budgets that spend more than they bring in? Their squawking is silenced with small concessions and primary threats from the president.
I’m Deborah Booth and that’s my perspective.
