South Dakota Wants City Dwellers, Native Americans To Work For Medicaid
By Alice Ollstein | May 25, 2018 6:00 am
Just a few days after Michigan Republicans walked back their controversial plan to exempt several majority-white counties from its proposed Medicaid work requirement after a widespread backlash and accusations of racism, South Dakota unveiled its own proposal that wades into a similar legal and political fight.
The draft waiver the state released this week proposes the implementation of a Medicaid work requirement for a five-year period only in the state’s two most populous counties, Minnehaha and Pennington, home to Sioux Falls and Rapid City respectively. While the both the state and its largest cities are overwhelmingly white, more than two-thirds of the state’s black residents and nearly half of the state’s Hispanic residents live in the two counties where the work requirements would take effect.
The state’s waiver justifies singling out the two counties by arguing that they were selected “based on population and access to employment and training resources,” and says other counties may be added “based on the initial outcomes of the pilot.”
If residents in those two counties who depend on Medicaid aren’t able to prove that they’re spending at least 80 hours per month working, studying, or searching for a job, they could lose their health care coverage.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/south-dakota-wants-city-dwellers-native-americans-to-work-for-medicaid
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