LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Four years after agreeing to expand Medicaid to cover more low-income adults, Michigan Republicans want an estimated 350,000 enrollees who aren’t working to get a job — or, at the very least, to start preparing to enter the labor force.
Their aim is to rein in a government health insurance program they say has grown far beyond its mission, to help businesses fill job openings and to reinforce the importance of work for abled-bodied people.
Democrats counter that the Senate-passed legislation would result in people losing coverage and create a costly bureaucracy of paperwork that’s difficult to navigate.
Gov. Rick Snyder, a Medicaid proponent, is critical to the fate of the “workforce engagement” requirements pending in the House. A spokesman says he’s not opposed to work requirements “if done responsibly.”