These fucking ghouls. Life is just too easy, I guess, so these monsters will always find a way to make it harder -- in this case, a new rule that could make it even harder for millions of sick Americans to obtain or stay on Medicaid after work requirements start next year.
The work requirement was established last summer as part of Republicans’ major tax and domestic policy legislation, and requires poor adults without disabilities to prove they worked, volunteered or attended school at least 80 hours a month or lose their Medicaid eligibility. Congressional leaders have described it as an effort to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse” in the program.
The New York Times reports that at the time the law passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated around five million people would become uninsured because of the work requirement, including many who were working but unable to handle the paperwork to prove it. Medicaid currently covers about 68 million Americans who are poor or disabled.
There are some exceptions for vulnerable people, including a carveout for people who are “medically frail.” But the law doesn't define that term clearly. Some experts had said it was a way to protect people whose health problems might worsen if they lost their health coverage, like those with cancer. In informal conversations with states in recent months, Medicaid officials had indicated they were embracing that approach.
But other experts recently urged the administration to view frailty as meaning too sick to work. That stricter interpretation was reflected in the final rule. It says people’s medical conditions must “significantly impair” their ability to meet the work requirement, language that is not in the statute itself.
“The exemption ensures that work expectations are directed to those who can participate and protecting those fully who cannot,” said Dan Brillman, who oversees Medicaid for the Trump administration.
The rule cites, as examples, that those who have H.I.V./AIDS, cancer or end-stage renal disease would not be exempt from reporting work hours unless their illness is serious enough to make it hard for them to work or volunteer. In other words, shut up and die.
When my ex died of cancer, we were going through his mail the day after he died, and there it was: the letter from Social Security approving him for full disability. I remember how we all laughed. "He's dead now, you think that's disabled enough?"
I remember watching Michael Moore's "Sicko" (if you've never seen it, it's free on YouTube) and there was a young man in France who actually got paid time off to rest and recover from his cancer treatment. He spent it at the beach. What an incredibly humane approach. I wonder if France still does that?
https://bsky.app/profile/hellishchildren.bsky.social/post/3mmdriypghc2i
