The new trend of work requirements for Medicaid is troubling. The LA Times’ Michael Hiltzik began an article about the recent news out of Arkansas this way:

The Republican project to turn Medicaid from a healthcare program into an obstacle course for the most vulnerable members of society has passed its first proof-of-concept test: Arkansas has reported that 4,574 residents, or more than half of those subject to new work requirements, lost their coverage as of last Saturday.

Some will be locked out of coverage entirely through the end of this year.

Work requirements are roadblocks to coverage, as the Arkansas experience proves. As a Health Affairs blog post discusses, one challenge is depending on an online reporting portal when the Medicaid population has a range of computer literacy, and the portal hasn’t functioned properly. Poor outreach and education efforts by the state certainly exacerbate the likelihood of people losing coverage. And the concept is backwards to begin with. As pointed out by one woman, “the policy does not take into account the complex lives of low-income people.”

The Medicaid work requirements unfortunately come at a time when middle-class Americans are relying on the safety net more than before. The Brookings Institution reports that eligibility expansions for critical safety net programs like Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have helped to expand the safety net into middle income households. In 2014, Brookings found the middle 60 percent of Americans accounted for 46.8 percent of federal aid offered to people who qualify for such help.