The failure of the Republican repeal and replace bill for Obamacare means that governors who want to change Medicaid requirements have to ask the federal government for permission. Walker is readying a request to let his state screen Medicaid applicants for drug use, which he plans to make public on April 19 and then send to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by the end of May.
If Walker succeeds, Wisconsin would be the first state to drug test Medicaid applicants.
Walker’s proposal would require childless, able-bodied adults living below the poverty line to answer questions about illegal drug use. If their answers identify them as suspected of using drugs, they’ll be required to undergo a drug test in order to get Medicaid benefits. Failing to take it will make them ineligible for at least six months. Those who test positive would have to receive treatment.
Walker is proposing to allow Medicaid to cover residential drug abuse treatment for these applicants. But his regime would deny health care coverage to anyone who couldn’t or didn’t want to take a test to get benefits. Denying health care to someone who may have a drug abuse problem isn’t likely to help get them assistance or any healthier.
If existing drug testing regimes for welfare, which allows states to impose such changes on their own, are any guide, that will be the more likely outcome. According to experts, there are more people who are denied welfare benefits because they don’t take the drug tests than those who are denied for a positive result. In Missouri for example, 407 people were tested while 627 either refused to get tested or didn’t follow up on it in 2014.