US judge blocks Medicaid work rules in blow to Trump

The Trump administration's efforts to push the poor toward self-sufficiency were dealt a blow Wednesday, when a federal judge ruled that Medicaid work requirements undermined the program's mission of providing health care for the needy. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., blocked work requirements for low-income people in two states Arkansas and Kentucky. He found that the states' requirements pose numerous obstacles to getting health care that have gone unresolved by federal and state officials. Boasberg sent the federal Health and Human Services Department back to the drawing board. But he stopped short of deciding the central question of whether work requirements are incompatible with Medicaid, a federal-state program that traditionally allows states broad leeway to set benefits and eligibility.