By: Jane Perkins
Executive Summary
The Trump administration’s approval of Kentucky’s Medicaid waiver project with its onerous work requirements and other legally suspect obstacles to health care for low-income individuals violates Medicaid law because the administration has “effectively rewritten the Medicaid Act, bypassing congressional restrictions by regulatory fiat, overturning a half century of administrative practice, ignoring large swaths of social science evidence and data, and threatening irreparable harm to the health and welfare of tens of thousands of people,” state National Health Law Program, Kentucky Equal Justice Center, and the Souther Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in their Memorandum In Support Of Motion For Summary Judgement in Stewart v. Azar. The health and human rights groups, representing more than a dozen Kentucky Medicaid beneficiaries, sued the Trump administration in January in federal court arguing that the approval of Kentucky’s Medicaid wavier scheme was illegal, and must be rescinded.
