Whether through work requirements or a lower earnings cutoff, Oklahoma will almost certainly make it more difficult this year for adults to be on Medicaid.
The Oklahoma Health Care Authority will develop work requirements for adults enrolled in SoonerCare. Spokesman Michael McNutt said Gov. Mary Fallin has issued an executive order telling the health care authority to come up with a plan in six months or less.
"People who are eligible to work, able to work, they should be doing so in order to receive Medicaid payments, and a couple other states have already done this: Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas. People who are unable to work, this would not affect them," McNutt said.
The work requirements would apply to adults age 19 to 64 with exemptions for pregnant women, some parents and caretakers, and people with conditions making them unfit for employment.
Health care authority spokeswoman Jo Stainsby said there are not many details in the governor’s executive order to the health care authority, so they aren’t sure how many SoonerCare enrollees will be affected.
"We have about 8,000 people that are categorized as parent caregivers that would meet the criteria and fall outside of the exemptions," Stainsby said.
There are 106,000 people in that group. Oklahoma Policy Institute’s Carly Putnam said most people it would apply to are already working or recently have been.
"And most of them are only on SoonerCare for about seven months, which means that our basic medical assistance program is working as it’s supposed to," Putnam said.
Rep. Glen Mulready has authored a bill that makes working, volunteering or a combination of both for an average of 20 hours a week the minimum requirement.
"I would just go to that key word, ‘most.’ How do we nudge others forward?" Mulready said during House debate on his bill.
The two states with work requirements approved by the federal government accepted Medicaid expansion, which Oklahoma did not.
There's also a state Senate bill could lower the income cutoff for adults who are parents or caregivers to qualify for SoonerCare by half, making 43,000 current enrollees ineligible.
