RICHMOND, Va. — About 300,000 Virginians are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage under new federal requirements tied to the state's Obamacare expansion.
State health leaders say of the 550,000 Virginians added to Medicaid through those subsidies, roughly 300,000 are now at risk. They will be required to document their monthly work hours and wages twice a year.
Virginia's Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marvin Figueroa says the requirement will punish working families with shifting schedules.
"If you look at the general population that is in Medicaid, a lot of those individuals are already working. What we are going to require as a state because of federal law is that those individuals have to verify that they're working. So I will think about it more as more paperwork. We are working to make sure that this is automated as possible, knowing that there will be some significant number of individuals that will lose coverage, not because they're not working or have a qualified activity, but because they lack the ability to prove that to the state and the federal government."
Figueroa says Virginia has budgeted funds to help families who are at risk of losing SNAP benefits or Medicaid, but that it will be impossible to replace the loss of federal money dollar for dollar.
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