Kentucky and Medicaid
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/opinion/kentucky-medicaid.html Version 0 of 1. To the Editor: Re “Kentucky Adds Work Rule for Recipients of Medicaid” (news article, Jan. 13): As a Kentuckian barely making ends meet in graduate school, I am troubled by Gov. Matt Bevin’s Medicaid work requirement plan because the evidence suggests that work requirements are ineffective. Selling this sweeping overhaul as a means to lift Kentuckians out of poverty is misleading. Republicans count the 1996 federal welfare law, which required recipients to work, a success. But earnings during the late 1990s were not enough to lift low-income people above the poverty line. Work requirements don’t solve the underlying problem, which is that low-income people lack the skills and education to secure a stable job. From 2009 to 2017, 32 Kentucky counties experienced a 10 to 32 percent decline in the number of jobs. This is another example of the Republican agenda of rejecting health as a citizen’s right and pushing policies that punish our vulnerable. NAOMI CHARALAMBAKISLOUISVILLE, KY. |