{"id":14787,"date":"2026-07-29T06:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=14787"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:49:00","slug":"work-requirements-target-the-wrong-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=14787","title":{"rendered":"Work Requirements Target the Wrong People"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

By KIM BELLARD<\/p>\n

One of the key \u201ccost savings\u201d in last years\u2019 Big, Beautiful Bill were work requirements imposed on most working aged beneficiaries in SNAP and\/or Medicaid, despite the fact that the few times such requirements had been tried showed they were costly to implement and operate<\/a> and don\u2019t do much to increase work participation<\/a>, although they are effective at getting beneficiaries to lose benefits. Republicans who pushed these requirements were infuriated at the thought that some able-bodied people \u2013 stereotypically young men \u2013 were sitting around on their couches playing video games while benefiting from the programs, despite those programs\u2019 complex administrative burdens and meagre benefits.<\/p>\n

A new GAO report<\/a> reminds us that the people coasting off SNAP and Medicaid were not so much the beneficiaries but rather employers, especially large employers. And the names of the most likely employers won\u2019t come as a big surprise.<\/p>\n

The report \u2014 Federal Social Safety Net Programs: Millions of Workers, Including Many Employed by Large Employers, Continue to Rely on Medicaid and SNAP <\/em>\u2013 <\/strong>was requested by Senator Bernie Sanders, in his role as Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and is a follow-up to a similar 2020 report. It focused on 11 states: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Washington.<\/p>\n

The top-lines are that working aged beneficiaries in both programs were, in fact, not only likely to already be working\u2014mostly full-time \u2014 but also at participation rates higher than working aged people not<\/em> on the programs, and that companies like Amazon and Walmart were among the largest employers of these beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

The key change in employment in these populations has been the explosion of gig workers in the app-based food delivery and ride sharing sectors. Workers at Amazon on these programs also tripled since the prior report. Walmart remains the employer with the largest number of these workers who receive Medicaid, but has slipped to second to ride sharing gig workers receiving SNAP. McDonalds and Dollar General round out the top five employers. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, these are among the largest employers generally, but, gosh, doesn\u2019t it gall you that have so many of their workers who still need SNAP and\/or Medicaid?\u00a0 It\u2019s not like they\u2019re not making money, it\u2019s not that their CEOs and other executives aren\u2019t raking in tens of millions of dollars, but they sure are reluctant to pay federal income taxes. The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported<\/a> earlier this year that, as a result of The Big, Beautiful Bill, Amazon\u2019s federal income taxes dropped from $9b to $1.2b in 2025, while profits soared 44.5% to $90b. Walmart looks like a sucker for paying $6b in 2025, an effective tax rate of about 23%.<\/p>\n

An Amazon spokesperson defended its practices in a response to The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>:<\/em> \u201cAmazon pay is among the best in the industry, regular full-time employees have access to health care from their first day \u2026 and 74% of our regular full-time employees are enrolled in an Amazon health insurance plan, well above the 65% private sector take-up rate for full-time workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, if all those employees have access to coverage from their first day and get among the best pay in the industry, why are any<\/em> on SNAP or Medicaid?\u00a0 And couldn\u2019t you at least pay more than 1.3% on federal taxes?<\/p>\n

Bernie, of course, was outraged<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon. These corporations are making record-breaking profits, paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages and spending billions of dollars on stock buybacks to enrich their wealthy shareholders. It is beyond unacceptable that these corporations, owned by some of the wealthiest people on the planet, are receiving corporate welfare from the federal government.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He pointed out that, in the 11 states, Walmart had 16,000 workers on Medicaid and 15.500 workers on SNAP, while Amazon had 11,000 workers on Medicaid and 12,000 workers on SNAP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, oh-by-the-way, an analysis by the Oregon Capital Chronicle<\/em><\/a> of the most listed employers in applications for Medicaid found \u201cthat dozens of major national and multinational corporations that often pay relatively low hourly or median wages rely on the government\u2019s health insurance program for low-income and disabled people to cover the costs of thousands of their Oregon employees\u2019 healthcare.\u201d\u00a0 The top five employers were Walmart, Safeway\/Albertsons, Amazon (and affiliates), Fred Meyer\/Kroger, and McDonald\u2019s. The articles noted that those five employers were also the top five listed employers on SNAP applications in a prior analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n

New Jersey, for one, has had enough. It recently passed a law requiring employers to pay an annual fee per employee on Medicaid, if there are at least 50 such workers. The fee ranges from $345 to $725, based on how many employees the company has on Medicaid. The fees are expected to raise $145 million annually. The state estimates that Amazon, for example, has 5,600 workers, and 10,000 dependents, on the state\u2019s Medicaid program, while Walmart has more than 10,000 workers and family members.<\/p>\n

Similar bills have been introduced in California, Colorado, and Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur feeling about this is that it\u2019s time for corporations working in our communities to step up for our communities,\u201d Alan Dubinsky, a spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union Local 49, said<\/a>. \u201cStop gouging the state and provide healthcare for your workers. If Jeff Bezos can afford hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centers, he can afford to provide healthcare for the people that built this wealth for him through their labor.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was around when there was active debate about \u201cemployer mandates,\u201d requiring employers to offer health insurance for workers. The complaint from employers was always, oh, it will cost jobs, and others speculated employers would just manipulate employees\u2019 hours to avoid them qualifying. Maybe both of those are true, but whatever sympathy I might have had for employers is diminished by their recent tax breaks and soaring executive pay. Corporations have successfully fought to be considered \u201cpeople,\u201d but they seem to only want the advantages that come with that standing, not the obligations.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d rather we ensure that even a few people sitting on their couches have adequate food and health care than I would that corporate executives can afford more yachts and helicopters. So, Republicans, spare me your faux outrage and focus on fairness.<\/p>\n

Kim is a former emarketing exec at a major Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented\u00a0<\/em>Tincture.io<\/em><\/a>, and now regular THCB contributor<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By KIM BELLARD One of the key \u201ccost savings\u201d in last years\u2019 Big, Beautiful Bill were work requirements imposed on most working aged beneficiaries in SNAP and\/or Medicaid, despite the fact that the few times such requirements had been tried showed they were costly to implement and operate and don\u2019t do much to increase work…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14787","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\/14787"}],"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=14787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}