On April 18, 2022, the Supreme Court tossed two consolidated cases from Arkansas and New Hampshire addressing work requirements for Medicaid coverage that required potential Medicaid beneficiaries to work, attend school, or volunteer for a certain number of hours to be eligible. Oral arguments in the cases were originally scheduled for March of 2021, but the Biden Administration requested the arguments be put on hold in February 2021. The Supreme Court has now terminated both cases with directions back to the lower courts to wipe the rulings from their records – saying that the cases are moot because HHS, under Biden Administration directives, revoked the states’ prior approvals to test these work requirement programs. A copy of the Supreme Court’s Order list from April 18, 2022 with the Court’s directions to the lower courts to vacate their judgments as moot, can is found here.

During the Trump administration, HHS granted twelve states federal approval to test work requirements for Medicaid enrollees. Arkansas and New Hampshire were two of the twelve states. Arkansas was the only state that began disenrolling beneficiaries based on the work requirements before the program was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting increase in unemployment rates. After litigation over the work requirements, a federal appeals court struck down Arkansas’ work requirements in 2020. Later that year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal brought by the Trump administration to review the ruling and joined the Arkansas case with a similar one from New Hampshire.

Although work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries are currently on hold, the issue is still being litigated. In January 2022, Georgia sued HHS over its revocation of approval for implementation of the state’s planned work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries. More information about this lawsuit can be found here.