ATLANTA — Georgia launched a lawsuit this week against the Biden administration, after the government revoked approval of a plan by Gov. Brian Kemp to expand Medicaid with a work requirement included.
Medicaid eligibility was originally expanded across the country with the passage of the Affordable Care Act - popularly known as Obamacare - in 2010. The Supreme Court however ruled two years later that states could opt out the expansion.
Since then, several mostly conservative states have foregone expanding their Medicaid eligibility. In Georgia, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates more than 450,000 would be newly insured with a full Medicaid expansion.
Gov. Kemp instead offered an expansion plan back in 2019 that would include an 80-hours-a-month work requirement, with a "waiver" of normal federal requirements. The governor has said this plan would expand coverage to more than 50,000 people.
The waiver was approved by the Trump administration late in the former president's term, but that approval was revoked last month by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Gov. Kemp said Friday in announcing the lawsuit that, “the Biden administration is obstructing our ability to implement innovative healthcare solutions for more than 50,000 hardworking Georgia families rather than rely on a one-size-fits-none broken system."
The Associated Press reached out to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with the agency saying it does not comment on pending litigation.
After the decision to invoke approval for the waiver, the AP reported that CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure told Georgia in a letter that the work requirement "could be impossible for people to meet during the pandemic, when it was critical that low-income Georgians have access to health coverage."
The AP reports that a separate review is still ongoing of another portion of Kemp's healthcare plan, one that would allow residents to shop for federally subsidized health insurance through private agents instead of on healthcare.gov, which also originally received approval by the Trump administration.