State officials say they are halting their efforts to educate people about a new Medicaid work requirement, now that a federal judge has blocked its implementation.
The state health department had been going door-to-door in an effort to reach roughly 17,000 New Hampshire residents who did not comply with the requirement in its first month.
On Monday, a federal judge in Washington D.C. said the Trump administration was in error when it allowed New Hampshire to impose the work requirement on certain Medicaid expansion beneficiaries.
As a result, state health commissioner Jeffrey Meyers says his department will drop all of its outreach efforts related to the program.
“We are ceasing our outreach efforts as a result of that because as a practical matter there is no program that we can implement,” said Meyers. “We are not undertaking any more door-to-door efforts at this time. We will obviously update New Hampshire Easy which is the online portal for Medicaid eligibility.”
Meyers said that all Medicaid expansion beneficiaries would soon be notified of the change.
Meyers thanked DHHS staff for their work in preparing to implement the work requirement, but he said the sudden change would not have a big impact on the department.
The case is likely to be appealed, raising the possibility that the work requirement could be reinstated and the state would have start over on its outreach efforts.
