Medicaid work requirements: Bad for emergency medicine

In January 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a waiver program for states to experiment with work requirements for “working-age, able-bodied” beneficiaries as a prerequisite for enrollment in Medicaid [1]. These requirements would conceivably be met by either completing a certain threshold of working hours or participating in “community engagement activity” including job training, education or volunteering. In announcing the program [2], CMS pointed to evidence from the public health literature supporting the premise that employment is a net positive for overall health [3,4].