West Virginia Joint Standing Committee on Finance talks Medicaid

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) — It was another busy day of interim committee meetings at the West Virginia State Capitol.

On Monday morning, the Joint Standing Committee on Finance met in the House chamber to hear a report from the West Virginia Bureau for Medical Services.

Cynthia Beane, a commissioner of the bureau, told lawmakers that Medicaid enrollment is likely to drop as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill passed by the federal government.

The bill added a new work requirement of 80 hours per month for people 19 to 64 years old.
Beane declined to estimate how many West Virginians may lose coverage.

Over 500,000 West Virginians rely on Medicaid for healthcare — 100,000 of whom fall under the Medicaid expansion provision for low-income adults.

Beane told the committee she could not yet estimate how many people would be lost from the new requirement.

“We got to set up a system that makes it easy for them to report if they are complying,” Delegate Matthew Rohrbach said. “Now, if they just don’t want to comply, they’re kind of remove themselves from the program. What I don’t want to have happen is, people who are in compliance not being able to get their applications in. That’s going to be a problem.”

Rohrbach suggested that the state is in a difficult position between ensuring citizens have proper coverage while also keeping the program solvent.