Families USA Urges CMS to Reject Harmful and Unnecessary Work Reporting Requirements in Arizona and Arkansas That Put Everyone’s Health Care at Risk - Families USA Skip to Main Content
05.09.2025 / Press Release

Families USA Urges CMS to Reject Harmful and Unnecessary Work Reporting Requirements in Arizona and Arkansas That Put Everyone’s Health Care at Risk

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Families USA submitted comments today to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) urging the agency to reject waivers submitted by Arizona and Arkansas to institute unnecessary, bureaucratic work reporting requirements for people who rely on Medicaid that would force hundreds of thousands of eligible people off of their health care.

If CMS approves these work reporting programs, it will threaten health care coverage for:

  • More than 237,000 low-income Arkansans — comprising more than 50% of Medicaid-enrolled adults in Arkansas, and more than 13% of all non-elderly adults in the state.
  • More than 414,600 low-income Arizonians — comprising 56% of all Medicaid-enrolled adults in Arizona, and 12% of all adults in the state.

“Put simply, work requirements don’t work – they have failed to achieve their stated goals in every state that has attempted to implement them, instead resulting in hundreds of thousands of people losing coverage, millions of dollars in extra costs to states, and showing absolutely no evidence of boosting employment rates. Work reporting requirements are a solution in search of a problem: 92% of Medicaid enrollees are already working or meet exemption criteria for being caregivers, ill or disabled,” said Sophia Tripoli, senior director of health policy at Families USA.

“Families USA strongly opposes all work reporting requirements, including programs disguised as ‘community engagement’ or as a ‘solution to poverty.’ No matter what you call them, these programs are just about making it more difficult for working people, and especially rural Americans, people with disabilities, and veterans — to enroll in or maintain Medicaid coverage, and leave many working families uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and one emergency from financial ruin. Fundamentally, work reporting requirements are in conflict with the primary objective of the Medicaid program, which is to ‘furnish medical assistance.’”

Families USA, the longtime health care consumer advocacy organization, is leading the effort to defend Medicaid, calling on Congress and the Trump administration to protect Medicaid from harmful changes and cuts that threaten the health care of millions.

For additional resources, see Families USA’s fact sheets on how work reporting requirements would undermine access to Medicaid, how cuts harm families and communities, and the overall importance of Medicaid to people, the economy and the health care system.