Southern Poverty Law Center Wins Major Victory Over Trump

The following statement was submitted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). 

Ever since Donald Trump was sworn into office, he has been on a mission to kill the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that has provided health insurance for millions of Americans, especially poor people and their families. It’s part of his cruel agenda to shift public resources away from people in need to pay for tax cuts that further enrich billionaires like himself.

Trump’s latest scheme would have allowed Kentucky to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. According to the state’s own estimates, this would have resulted in nearly 100,000 low-income Kentuckians losing the health insurance they receive through Medicaid.

We sued the Trump administration to stop this, along with our good friends at the National Health Law Program, Kentucky Equal Justice Center, and the law firm Jenner & Block. On Friday, a federal judge ruled in our favor, blocking the change that would have gone into effect as soon as this week.

This is a major victory. Not only will all of these Kentuckians continue to be able to access health care services through Medicaid, many other states are considering similar work requirements. Had this policy gone into effect, it likely would have fueled a movement to cut health insurance for poor people across America.

Within hours of being sworn in last year, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at dismantling ACA – also known as Obamacare – his predecessor’s landmark health reform law.

Obamacare expanded Medicaid to cover millions more people. Although Congress failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump has taken steps to weaken it by going around the legislative process. Allowing states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients was one of those steps.

In its own words, the Trump administration has said this would have “fundamentally transformed” Medicaid. The purpose of Medicaid is to provide medical insurance to people who cannot afford it, not to create roadblocks to coverage.

The Trump administration claims that work requirements will lead to better health outcomes because employment can be linked to improved health, which they say will help move people off Medicaid as they make more money.

This line of argument ignores the fact that nearly two-thirds of Medicaid recipients are children, blind or otherwise disabled, or elderly. More than half of the remainder are, in fact, already working. If they are not working, they are likely elderly, disabled, retired, sick, or caring for a loved one. Simply put, almost all Medicaid recipients who can work are working.

The Trump administration knew its argument was disingenuous, and recognized that many worthy Medicaid recipients would lose their health insurance. So it sought to protect its voters from the changes, while intentionally cutting Medicaid benefits for low-income people of color.

Kentucky’s waiver — as well as pending waivers for other states — would have exempted counties with high unemployment rates, which tend to be majority-white, GOP-leaning, and rural. By contrast, many low-income people of color who live in urban centers would not qualify for the exemption. That’s because these cities are surrounded by wealthier suburbs, which pull the county unemployment rates below the qualifying limit.

What’s more, the Trump administration’s rhetoric on Medicaid and waivers are fraught with decades-old racial myths suggesting that low-income people of color are somehow living lavish lifestyles on government assistance, while refusing to work. These ugly, old stereotypes are contradicted by the actual lived experiences of Medicaid recipients: Again, most enrollees who can work, do.

For now, Trump is defeated. Those 100,000 Kentuckians can continue using Medicaid to see their doctors and access medical services.

But we know Trump is not going to give up — he will very likely appeal this ruling. And he will likely approve similar plans in other states, refusing to recognize the inhumanity of what he is doing. He has a grotesque fixation with eliminating all of President Obama’s accomplishments, and doesn’t seem to care that undoing ACA would cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. This is a life-and-death matter. People die when they cannot access medical care.

That’s why we will continue to fight for them. Thank you for caring and supporting our work. Countless people are counting on us to stop Trump from shredding the safety net.