Federal judge rules against part of Trump's health care agenda, blocking work requirements for Medicaid

Judge James Boasberg from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has struck down a key part of President Donald Trump's health care agenda. This is the third time that this particular judge has ruled against the Trump administration on health care.

What's the background?

Under the Affordable Care Act, states expanded Medicaid to cover additional people. Now some of them want to scale back those expansions.

With the support of the Trump administration, several states have begun implementing work requirements for Medicaid recipients. These requirements would force people to do some sort of work (paid or volunteer) for a set amount of time every month, in order to qualify for Medicaid. Certain categories of people, including those physically unable to work, would be exempt from these restrictions.

The move would likely disqualify at least tens of thousands of people from the program in each state.

What did the judge say?

While this ruling focused on New Hampshire, Boasberg has previously ruled against similar work requirements for Medicaid in both Kentucky and Arkansas. In the case of Kentucky, Boasberg wrote in his decision, "At bottom, the record shows that 95,000 people would lose Medicaid coverage, and yet the secretary paid no attention to that deprivation."

In his ruling on Monday, Boasberg argued that the work requirements mandated by New Hampshire "are more exacting than Kentucky's and Arkansas's" since they both increased the number of hours from 80 a month to 100 a month, and the requirements in Arkansas has applied only "to persons 19 to 49." In New Hampshire, that age range would have been 19 to 64.

He added that while there were no exact numbers provided about the loss of coverage from this change, "the record evidence from similar programs strongly suggests ... that the loss will be substantial."

Boasberg was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2011.