Keesa Smith-Brantley, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, one of several organizations sounding alarms over Congressional cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps.
Appearing on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics and Capitol View, she offered her perspective on how Medicaid cuts would affect Arkansans.
“We’ve got about 800,000 Arkansans that utilize Medicaid,” she said. “We should be concerned about that. Hospitals have already raised the alarm, they’ve already said they’re operating on razor-thin margins, and this will lead to more individuals showing up needing care that don’t have insurance.”
Arkansas has applied for a Medicaid waiver to require able-bodied adults on Medicaid to search for work. The Medicaid work requirement is also being debated at the federal level in the reconciliation bill Congress is shaping. Smith-Brantley, who worked at the state Department of Human Services (DHS) when Arkansas was approved for a work requirement waiver, is skeptical that work requirements will work.
“I worked at the Department of Human Services. I was the deputy there for a long time. I was there when we implemented work requirements the first time. I thought that it would help and I saw firsthand that it didn’t,” she said.
“This is the problem with work requirements in general. Number one, the majority of Arkansans that are on Medicaid or utilize SNAP that can work, do work. One of the things that we weren’t thinking about at DHS at the time is not whether or not someone wants to work, it’s whether or not they have a job available to work. And so the real problem with work requirements is that we don’t first look at whether or not there is availability of quality jobs that will no longer make these individuals eligible for Medicaid. If the only job available is McDonald’s, then that individual is going to be working those jobs and probably still qualify for Medicaid, but now they have to go through all of these extra reporting efforts, which tends to kick people off of Medicaid,” she added.
Smith-Brantley also expressed concerns over Congressional proposals to cut federal funding for SNAP and shift costs to the states.
“Their [House] proposal would make Arkansas responsible for $110 million in costs that we have not paid before. The Senate is a little better, it’s $55 million. But the question is where is that $55 million? Do we have that sitting somewhere in the bank? We don’t. Our state legislature and our governor are going to have to sit down and figure out how we are going to pay this,” she said.
“If we can’t pay the $55 million, then the only other option is to not have a SNAP program. And I know that people think that’s just unbelievable, but these requirements are harsh and they’re new, and there’s not a lot of wiggle room in them to help states pay those funds,” added Smith-Brantley.
This week, the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book was released that showed Arkansas’ standing in education, health, family and economic well-being. The state ranked 45th nationally. The AACF executive director noted that the statistics are a lagging indicator and don’t show results from any changes from the legislature’s most recent work. She’s hopeful that improvements from the LEARNS Act, for instance, will show improvements in reading skills.
The post Arkansas Advocates chief analyzes Medicaid, SNAP cuts appeared first on Talk Business & Politics.
