Health
Court vacates narrowed medical-frailty definitionRestore the exemption inside the work requirement
Eligibility Operations must remove an extra hurdle from the medical-frailty definition. The broader implementation calendar keeps its January appointment.
- Executive owner
- Donald J. Trump / CMS / HHS
- Status
- Court vacates narrowed medical-frailty definition
- Due
- January 1, 2027 implementation deadline remains
- Paying for it
- Federal and state Medicaid budgets; affected recipients and administrators
ACTIVITY
UpdatedI want people working. I also want somebody to explain why proving you can't work has become a job with no lunch break.
The court invalidated part of the exemption definition.
Other verification provisions remain in place.
Nobody told me an exception needed an exception consultant.
The January implementation deadline remains.
I had a beautiful simple word, exempt. Now there's a screen, another screen, somebody says upload it, the sick person is doing all the uploading. Tremendous amount of work for a system deciding whether you can work.
Make the instructions readable. I don't want a patient needing a second doctor just to interpret our website.
PUBLIC RECORD
On October 29, Judge Richard Stearns vacated and barred enforcement of CMS language narrowing the medical-frailty exemption from Medicaid work requirements. He upheld the 12-month evidence limit and restrictions on self-attestation. The order provides plaintiff states six months of enforcement relief for medical-frailty determinations, without changing the January 1, 2027 implementation deadline. This did not invalidate the overall work-requirement law. Reuters reported CMS declined comment.
U.S. District Court · October 29 Medicaid order · 2026-10-29 ↗