A think tank that espouses free-market principles says the Biden administration’s decision preventing Ohio from requiring Medicaid recipients work to receive benefits will end up hurting those Ohioans instead.
The Buckeye Institute’s Rea Hederman says the work requirement Ohio wanted to attach to Medicaid was not only good for businesses but also recipients.
“It helped connect them back to the labor market so they could get skills for better jobs. And our research shows by doing so, they can increase their lifetime earnings by thousands, in some cases tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, because we know that work experience and the longer you are in the workforce, the better jobs you get," Hederman says.
Hederman says that’s especially true right now when there are so many jobs available.
But this work requirement has never been in place. Work requirements were to start at the first of this year but were postponed by the pandemic since some Ohioans relied on Medicaid for COVID-related care.
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