In order to continue getting access to the program, able-bodied adults without dependents will be required to complete 80 hours a month of community engagement, which includes work, education or volunteer work.
Others may also be required to pay a monthly premium that will be based on their income level.
But the move, which has been hailed as a way to promote jobs, is more about cutting health care, says Leonardo Cuello, an attorney and the director of health policy for the National Health Law Program.
Speaking to Sputnik Radio's Loud & Clear, Cuello told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou that the entire shift is just "a huge administrative burden."
"It's a huge administrative burden and that gets at the heart of the issue [that] none of this is truly about… promoting jobs, it's about cutting health care," Cuello said. "If you wanted to promote jobs, you would create job training programs, because what people need is the training to match the small number of jobs that are out there."
"You would do things that would help connect people to jobs, not threaten to take away their health care," he added.
The majority of people on Medicaid will likely end up losing their coverage, Cuello predicted.
"Part of the problem is the administrative hurdles that you have to go through to prove that you have an illness that qualifies you for an exception or to prove that you are a student that qualifies for an exception," the attorney said. "You have people who are homeless, they don't actually have a mailbox so they're going to get terminated. All of these people who aren't able to fill out the paperwork are going to get cut off."
Residents of Kentucky aren't alone in the matter as several other states are moving to get approval for their own waivers.
