AAP Statement on Medicaid Work Requirements Rule

By: Andrew D. Racine, MD, PhD, FAAP, president, American Academy of Pediatrics

“The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly opposes the rule announced earlier this week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that will make it harder for families to access healthcare and will lead to people losing their Medicaid coverage altogether. This is an intentional policy choice that will harm children’s long-term health and well-being. 

“When parents have healthcare coverage, their children are more likely to be covered and stay covered over time, allowing uninterrupted access to the care they need to grow up healthy. Work requirements have not been shown to help adults gain employment. Instead, the added red tape makes it more difficult for eligible people to stay enrolled in Medicaid and makes the program less efficient overall. These administrative barriers will disproportionately hurt people with disabilities, and parents of children with special health care needs will lose coverage. 

“If we are to best support and invest in child health, our federal leaders should be advancing policies that make access to healthcare as seamless as possible. The new burdensome requirements that many parents will face under this rule will ultimately undermine families’ health and financial stability. The policies to narrowly define who qualifies for exemptions will add to the state costs to administer the program, create headaches for families trying to navigate the bureaucracy, and harm the very people that Medicaid is meant to serve. 

“Medicaid is a program designed around the needs of children. Efforts to undercut or undermine Medicaid for the children who rely on it is a bet against the future of the country. The AAP urges CMS to rescind this misguided rule and make good on their promise to protect the country’s most vulnerable. We must focus on ensuring children and families can get the coverage and care they need to thrive.” 

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.