Measuring Health Status in the Era of Medicaid Work Requirements: A Scoping Review

In January of 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services began allowing states to enforce work requirements for Medicaid recipients. In the past, these types of requirements have had negative effects on access to safety net programs. We reviewed the literature for articles that looked at the effects on the health of Medicaid recipients who were impacted by work requirements. We identified nine texts, but the methods and evidence varied in quality. The research we found on this subject is done by academic universities and paid for by some private, but mostly public funds. The included texts describe effects on different groups of people, mostly those who are vulnerable or suffering from acute and chronic disease. With so little evidence at this time, we cannot clearly say if work requirements have positive or negative impacts on health. However, we found that there is an opportunity for researchers to anticipate the impact on health, so they can design and carry out studies that measure any likely changes.