Thank You, Kentucky for requiring Medicaid Recipients to Work for Benefits

It looks like we are recycling a work-for-benefits requirement in order to receive Medicaid.  The idea is not new but the left hates it as it diminishes the welfare class and inculcates values more in line with American productivity. A smaller recipient class might mean a few less votes for democrat candidates.

When I worked for Washington State, we evaded every opportunity to require recipients to work for benefits:

* The program “workfare” which required food stamp recipients to work for benefits magically disappeared with no public comment.

* An “assistant secretary,” one position from the top of the agency once, while red-faced, told me it was not right to require recipients to get up at 5:30 in the morning to go to work because “they are not used to it.”

* Social workers, charged with “preparing” people for work would excuse recipients from missed appointments instead of sanctioning their benefits or otherwise holding them accountable.

* Ex-governor, Mike Lowry wrote to Bill Clinton that he did not want recipients to lose benefits EVEN IF THEY CHOOSE NOT TO WORK. Literally...not my words.

* DSHS, with advocacy groups, published administrative rules diluting the intent of law with respect to receiving benefits.  Taxpayers were not included in these “negotiations.” The administrative law is designed to lose in court so the recipients end up receiving benefits with few requirements attached.

* When Clinton signed new time-limits (rarely enforced in Washington) for welfare, 20% of the caseload dropped immediately.  Senior management, you know, “the smartest people in the room,” were unwilling to admit that these people were able-bodied all along and decided to get the good jobs before there was a glut of potential competitors for the same jobs.  The agency’s reaction was to NOT reduce staff because “the remainder of the recipients are tough to employ so we need to keep the staff to prepare them for work.”  These were the same staff who excused recipients who missed appointments.

The is absolutely no justification for allowing recipients to do nothing for the benefits.  Working, as so many of us do, is not “cruel and unusual punishment” and any judicial rulings against such requirements are the result of faulty writing of law (in some cases deliberate).  The Left bellyaches about the reluctance of taxpayers to pay for a free ride without admitting that there is nothing unreasonable about requiring people to work.  I think with a Trump presidency we now have a chance to stick to the concept “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”  Forcing a welfare mom to pick up litter along the highway does two things.  It cleans up our highways and her children, watching this are going to say, “I am going to stay in school since that is not what I want to do for my working life.

Kentucky, you are the first on board.  Congratulations and stick to your guns. I am sure CA, WA, NY, CT, MA, OR and MN will be the last to join...and that is why grants are important since the smart states will make better use of theirs.

As our country grapples with how to reduce the costs of benefits this is an excellent start; the reasonable alternative to reducing medicare and social security for which the recipients pre-paid...with no choice to opt out.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/13/kentucky-to-add-medicaid-work-requirement-first-state-to-follow-trump-plan.html