Easterseals' President and CEO Kendra Davenport was quoted in HME Business alongside leaders from the Legal Action Center, the National Health Law Program, and the Kaiser Family Foundation:
“Yesterday’s rule from CMS on work requirements will reshape Medicaid for millions of Americans, and we want to be clear-eyed about what comes next,” said Easterseals President/CEO Kendra Davenport in a June 2 announcement. “We have already seen how this kind of policy plays out when it is implemented without strong protections. In Arkansas in 2018, around 18,000 people lost their Medicaid in just a few months — not because they didn’t qualify, but because the paperwork was impossible to navigate. People who were working lost coverage. People with disabilities who were exempt lost coverage. The reporting system itself became the barrier.
“At Easterseals, we help people achieve employment every day. Having healthcare makes employment possible, not the other way around. These work requirements are a penalty for losing a job, missing a piece of mail, or a procedural error — they just cause eligible people to lose the coverage they depend on. That means children and adults with disabilities, older adults, veterans and the family members holding it all together — along with the direct care workers whose jobs exist because Medicaid pays for them.”
Read the full article on HME Business.
