{"id":13591,"date":"2026-05-29T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=13591"},"modified":"2026-05-29T18:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:30:00","slug":"budget-strapped-montana-will-stress-test-trumps-medicaid-work-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=13591","title":{"rendered":"Budget-Strapped Montana Will Stress-Test Trump\u2019s Medicaid Work Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montana will soon\u00a0test\u00a0whether cash-strapped and strained state health departments can\u00a0carry out\u00a0federal Medicaid work requirements without ending coverage for eligible adults.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On July 1, Montana plans to become the second state after Nebraska to make Medicaid enrollees prove\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0working to keep their coverage.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0six months ahead of the federal deadline for states to implement Medicaid work rules for millions of enrollees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That date is also the start of a new state budget year, as well as the deadline for Montana health officials to climb out of\u00a0a previous\u00a0Medicaid-driven spending deficit. Montana lawmakers underfunded the health agency when they set the state budget last year \u2014 before congressional Republicans passed President Donald Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Health policy analysts say the state\u2019s budget crunch is a hint of the challenges to come nationwide.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s\u00a0because the federal spending law requires states to check every six months whether millions of Medicaid enrollees work, go to school, or volunteer at least\u00a080 hours\u00a0a month, or qualify for an exemption. Those checks will take time and money. Simultaneously, the law\u00a0is expected\u00a0to reduce federal Medicaid spending \u2014 the largest pool of federal funding for states \u2014 by\u00a0nearly\u00a0$1 trillion\u00a0over 10 years, shift more food\u00a0assistance\u00a0costs to states, and add tax breaks that could hit state budgets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStates are the ones that are\u00a0gonna\u00a0have to do the dirty work of implementing cuts,\u201d said Joan Alker, a Georgetown University researcher focused on health coverage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of Montana\u2019s proposed budget fix is to stall rate increases for healthcare providers that were due July 1. Clinicians told me they already struggle to afford hiring staff amid growing waitlists for care, which they blame on low Medicaid payments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there are\u00a0some\u00a0red flags in the state\u2019s Medicaid data from recent years: People often face long waits to access public\u00a0assistance, and\u00a0many\u00a0can lose coverage at renewal time because of paperwork issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All these problems reflect a national challenge to connect people to care through strained public\u00a0assistance\u00a0programs. Our reporting has long shown how states have struggled to process Medicaid applications.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur concern is, is the department ready?\u201d Jean Branscum, CEO of the Montana Medical Association,\u00a0said of\u00a0the\u00a0state\u00a0health agency. \u201cDoes the capacity exist for all this to be done right and ensure that patients don\u2019t pay the price?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

State officials have said\u00a0they\u2019ll\u00a0scan existing data to try to automatically confirm whether people meet the work rules. And\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0been\u00a0building up\u00a0their public\u00a0assistance\u00a0team for months.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0had to wait on unanswered questions from the federal government that are key to exempting especially vulnerable people from the incoming rules. And now,\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0got\u00a0a lot\u00a0more work to do with less money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t<\/p><\/a>\n

Montana Hurries To Adopt Trump\u2019s Medicaid Work Rules Amid Budget Woes<\/a><\/h2>\n
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The state is ramping up to implement the federal work requirements six months ahead of the deadline. But Montana is one of several states already struggling to pay for health services.<\/p>\n

By Katheryn Houghton<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 27, 2026\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/medicaid\/the-week-in-brief-montana-medicaid\/”>article<\/a&gt<\/a>; first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org”>KFF<\/a> Health News<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative<\/a> Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/04\/kffhealthnews-icon.png?w=150&quot<\/a>; style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n

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Montana will soon\u00a0test\u00a0whether cash-strapped and strained state health departments can\u00a0carry out\u00a0federal Medicaid work requirements without ending coverage for eligible adults.\u00a0 On July 1, Montana plans to become the second state after Nebraska to make Medicaid enrollees prove\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0working to keep their coverage.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0six months ahead of the federal deadline for states to implement Medicaid work rules for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}