![\"RFK](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250512_zaa_nc09_005.jpg\")
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walking outside the White House.Tom Williams\/CQ Roll Call\/Zuma<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n Freddie Elmore hasn\u2019t worked for around 20 years. Now, he\u2019s trying to figure out how, and if, he can return to the workforce\u2014not because he thinks he can do so while managing his health, but because he is concerned that he will lose Medicaid.<\/p>\n To retain Medicaid coverage, Elmore, who lives with disorders including central pain syndrome<\/a> and Long Covid, may soon have to work at least 80 hours a month\u2014while caring for his autistic son 49 hours a week, commitments he\u2019s afraid he won\u2019t be medically able to juggle\u2014unless he\u2019s able to win exemptions on terms expected to be set almost entirely by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n In July, Congress passed<\/a> President Trump\u2019s budget bill, which funds sweeping tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans through an estimated $911 billion <\/a>in planned cuts to Medicaid, and in particular by establishing requirements that would force most Medicaid users to work at least 80 hours per month in order to stay on its rolls.<\/p>\n The ethos behind Kennedy\u2019s Make America Healthy Again movement<\/a> blames individual people<\/a> for their chronic diseases\u2014particularly by associating health conditions with choices like vaccination<\/a>\u2014and links Medicaid users\u2019 value to their economic productivity, as when Trump\u2019s Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, said<\/a> in early July that able-bodied people on Medicaid should replace deported migrant farm workers.<\/p>\n Now, Kennedy will have almost total, personal authority over his department\u2019s definition of<\/a> who is \u201cmedically frail<\/a>\u201d and who has \u201cspecial medical needs,\u201d definitions that will play a central role in determining who is actually able to get exemptions from Medicaid work requirements\u2014and how Medicaid users will be screened.<\/p>\n There are multiple ways disabled people could lose Medicaid coverage when work requirements hit, says David Machledt, a senior policy analyst with the nonprofit National Health Law Program. \u201cSometimes, it may be the definition being too narrow to capture people who have real barriers to employment,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s also just as likely going to be bumps from and coverage loss that comes\u2026when the state sets up a verification regime.\u201d<\/p>\n A person with debilitating chronic pain, or a serious autoimmune illness, may appear \u201cable-bodied\u201d by the standards RFK Jr. appears poised to implement\u2014even as they face hurdles in qualifying for Social Security disability due to not being considered disabled enough. HHS declined to answer a series of questions for this article, instead offering a general statement that the agency \u201cremains committed to protecting and strengthening Medicaid for those who rely on it\u2026while eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s completely counterintuitive to not allow people to have health care until they\u2019re at a point where they can \u2018prove it,\u2019\u201d Justice in Aging <\/a>attorney Gelila Selassie told me. \u201cAt that point, they\u2019re definitely not going to be able to work, and then, more importantly, they don\u2019t have access to health care.\u201d<\/p>\n Machledt hopes that states will be allowed some room to define disability exemptions, which could lead to a \u201cbroader standard that would be more appropriate for someone who has a barrier to employment.\u201d<\/p>\n But Mina Schultz, a longtime health policy professional and cancer survivor with chronic kidney disease and hearing loss, is concerned about a state-level approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in blue states [may] have an easier time getting an exemption than people in red states whose representatives think that they don\u2019t deserve health care,\u201d said Schultz, who lives in New Mexico and is currently not working in order to take care of her health.<\/p>\n The reality is that more and more people are becoming chronically ill through Long Covid and other health conditions that Covid can trigger, many of whom can\u2019t work the required half-time\u201480 hours per month\u2014and some of whom can\u2019t work at all. Around half of the half of living with Long Covid fit the criteria of ME\/CFS<\/a>, a debilitating condition that is characterized by post-exertion malaise<\/a>, fatigue and chronic pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Georgia<\/a>, the only state that currently enacts Medicaid work requirements, such conditions generally aren\u2019t recognized or incorporated into the state\u2019s criteria, according to Laurie Jones, the executive director of #MEAction<\/a>, which advocates for people with ME\/CFS\u2014a condition some of the state\u2019s reviewers of Medicaid exemptions aren\u2019t even aware of. <\/p>\n More broadly, Medicaid work requirements in Georgia aren\u2019t exactly working. As reported<\/a> by ProPublica and The Current, only about \u201c7,500 of the nearly 250,000 eligible Georgians were enrolled, even though state statistics show 64 percent of that group is working.\u201d<\/p>\n