{"id":644630,"date":"2026-07-31T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=644630"},"modified":"2026-07-31T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:25:00","slug":"judge-rejects-states-attempt-to-block-medicaid-work-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=644630","title":{"rendered":"Judge Rejects States’ Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge Rejects States’ Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A federal judge on July 30 declined to block new work requirements for Medicaid recipients that states must<\/a> implement by Jan. 1, 2027.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge Richard Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts turned down a request for a preliminary injunction made by Massachusetts and 25 other states to block the work requirements as the states\u2019 legal challenge proceeds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stearns said<\/a> in a six-page decision that the harms about which the states complained\u2014added costs to comply with the new requirements\u2014are largely reimbursable, since the federal government has said it will pay for 90 percent of the costs.<\/p>\n

States have also complained that officials face a \u201ctight timeline\u201d to implement the requirements, <\/strong>which include<\/a> mandating that beneficiaries aged 19 to 64 work, volunteer, or participate in job training for 80 or more hours per month. The timing, though, was set by Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, not by the defendant, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in its guidance<\/a> on implementing the requirements, the judge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a certain point at which damages fail to justify the issuance of such an extraordinary measure,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Stearns wrote later. \u201cPlaintiffs have not shown that their damages rise above that minimal threshold here. Moreover, the additional costs that may be incurred by the States are unlikely to bloom disproportionately given the familiarity of the responsible state agencies with the tasks to be performed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the states and the government did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Jan. 1, 2027, deadline to implement changes, states in their motion for an injunction noted that under the guidance, they also must inform Medicaid recipients of the looming update in notices by Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

The states also opposed the guidance on how to determine whether a person is medically frail, which would exempt them from the work requirements. The guidance suggests that in no case can states base their determinations of whether an individual is \u201cmedically frail\u201d solely on their records that an individual has a \u201cparticular diagnosis or condition\u201d and improperly limits the short-term hardship exception for individuals experiencing an emergency declared by the president to those who can establish that the emergency renders them unable to comply, state lawyers told the court.<\/p>\n

Government lawyers said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act delegated the definition of medically frail to the federal government, and the states are seeking to impose \u201carbitrary limits\u201d on that authority. <\/strong>They also said the state plaintiffs had not met the standards for a preliminary injunction.<\/p>\n

Stearns said on July 30 that the court\u2019s denial of the injunction request \u201cis not a reflection or anticipation of its ultimate views on the merits of the underlying litigation,\u201d which will proceed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs illustrated in the pleadings and briefings to date (and in the arguments of counsel during the hearing), this case presents difficult issues regarding the scope of Congress\u2019s delegation of interpretative authority to the Secretary and the faithfulness to Congressional intent with which the Secretary performed his task,\u201d the judge stated.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis, in turn, requires an examination of the data relied upon by the Secretary and the judgments (some medical) that underlay his amplification of Congress\u2019s legislative outline.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThese are determinations that, in the view of the court, should be made on a developed record of the kind that informs a court\u2019s decision at the summary judgment stage of a case.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 07\/31\/2026 – 18:25<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judge Rejects States’ Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, A federal judge on July 30 declined to block new work requirements for Medicaid recipients that states must implement by Jan. 1, 2027. Judge Richard Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts turned down… Continue reading Judge Rejects States’ Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":644631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,10,21,12,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-644630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancel-culture","category-censorship","category-civil-liberties","category-election-integrity","category-equal-justice","category-free-speech","category-religious-freedom","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=644630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/644631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=644630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=644630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=644630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}