The lawsuit names HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and CMS head Dr. Mehmet Oz.Carline Jean/TNS/Zuma
On Monday, officials in 25 states and Washington, DC, sued Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz over the interim final rule for Medicaid work requirements established by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The new rule, their lawsuit contends, “will create unnecessary bureaucracy and lead people who are either already working or eligible for an exclusion to lose or be denied coverage.”
As I previously reported, the rule released near the beginning of June was even more onerous than many state officials feared. It was a surprise to states that individuals already on Medicaid with serious health conditions would have to jump through further hoops to prove that they were unable to work:
State officials were blindsided by this medical frailty definition outlined in the new federal rule, which was never brought up in discussions between states and the federal government, Jennifer Wagner, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ director of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment, told me. “We have heard that this was driven more by the White House,” Wagner said. “I don’t think it was CMS intentionally misleading states.”
The lawsuit specifically raises the point that CMS “provided no indication
that it intended to place specific limits on States’ ability to rely on self-attestation” rather than requiring health care workers’ certification in all circumstances.
In a press release, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who helped lead the suit, said that the “abrupt changes in [federal] implementation of the statute leave states insufficient time to adjust…or effectively communicate to members what is required.”
“This eleventh-hour attempt to further narrow protections for medically frail Medicaid recipients seeks to punish those who cannot fend for themselves,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, who is also joining the suit, in a press release.
The lawsuit asks that a federal judge stay the interim final rule and vacate parts of it. The rule would otherwise go into effect in states with Medicaid expansion by January 1.
