An Experiment: Medicaid Work Requirements and Perceived Target Populations

• In Event: Work and Waivers in Medicaid

Abstract

Since Donald Trump took office as president, a number of Republican-controlled state governments have sought to add work requirements to their Medicaid programs via federally approved waivers of regular Medicaid policy. While such policies offer a potential path to expansion of Medicaid eligibility in states that have resisted expansion thus far, policy experts are skeptical that they can be implemented well or that they will lead to positive outcomes. The political advantages of Medicaid work requirements, if any, could also be normatively troublesome. I argue that the political appeal of work requirements in social policy operates in part by affecting perceptions of what racial and ethnic groups will benefit from the policy. Specifically, they should reduce the likelihood that respondents identify the policy with stereotyped minorities (such as blacks and immigrants) while increasing the likelihood that they identify it with majority or in-groups (such as whites and people born in the US). In this project, I use a randomized experiment embedded on a national survey to determine if Medicaid work requirements do indeed shape public perceptions of who benefits from Medicaid expansion, and how those perceptions interact with attitudes about minority groups to shape their attitudes about the policy.

Author

• Jake Haselswerdt, University of Missouri