Sr. Mary Haddad: New Medicaid rules are too burdensome

Hospitals are bracing for the financial impact of cuts in Medicaid in the coming years, but they could be seeing more patients losing coverage in 2027.

Sr. Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, says she worries that millions of Americans could lose coverage with new rules for Medicaid taking effect next year.

Starting in 2027, new work requirements for Medicaid will take effect. Many adults will be required to work 80 hours a month to receive Medicaid coverage.

In addition, recipients will now have to verify their eligibility for Medicaid twice a year beginning in 2027. They only have to do so once now. Analysts have projected millions of Americans could lose coverage under the new Medicaid rules.

In a conversation with Chief Healthcare Executive, Haddad says she’s gravely concerned about cuts in Medicaid forcing hospitals to reduce services and potentially even close facilities. In this video, she discussed the impact of new requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries. Here are excerpts.

Q: I wanted to ask about the work requirements for Medicaid. That's been a concern for a lot of folks that they're going to maybe lose coverage, and it's been a concern for folks that maybe even have some serious illnesses that they may still be required to work to keep their Medicaid benefits. Do you have some concerns about how that's rolling out? Because those are going to be coming into effect fairly soon.

A: “So we had concerns last year when this was part of the plan about doing the work requirements. Let me just speak to that first.

“I think that what is troublesome for me is that we look at access to care, or healthcare, basically as a benefit that you have to earn instead of a fundamental human right, and people shouldn't have to earn access to be able to be healthy. They should be given that right by virtue of who they are as a person in this country.

“I think what we're seeing now is another layer of barriers being put on the work requirements, as we see now what they're calling a functional assessment, where there will be another level of requirement where individuals will have to demonstrate why their disability, or whatever the category that deems them medically frail, hinders their ability to work.

“So it's another layer of burden on the patient in order to demonstrate their state of health at this point in time, which I think makes it even more troublesome. So what we saw initially was bad. This is getting worse.”

Q: There's now more frequent eligibility checks for Medicaid, and that's a problem, from what people have said. That's something I don't think I really fully appreciated until a few months ago. Is this going to be a significant headache, and potentially a problem in terms of people losing coverage?

A: “Absolutely, absolutely. We're going to find that people are going to fall through the cracks because they're not going to keep up with what is going to be required in order to deem them eligible for Medicaid.

“And I will tell you, this has historically been an issue, the paperwork that's required. And now to put additional requirements on them only exacerbates the issue, but there will be people that will end up falling through the cracks or no longer have eligibility just simply because they weren't able to complete the paperwork. So we've made it even more burdensome for people.”