Medical groups and enrollees sue to block work rules for medically frail Medicaid recipients

Five Medicaid enrollees and leading medical organizations sued the Trump administration on Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, in federal court in Maryland to block new Medicaid work requirements. The suit says a June 2026 rule sharply narrows who qualifies for the law's exemption for the "medically frail." The plaintiffs. Enrollees from Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina joined the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the city of Columbus, Ohio. The barrier. People who are blind, disabled, or living with substance use or serious medical conditions must still prove those conditions stop them from working. Where it stands. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act's work, school or community service conditions apply across 44 states, and the Maryland court has not set a hearing.

What Arkansas's 2018 work-reporting rule did to enrollees:

• 18,164 Arkansas adults aged 30 to 49 lost Medicaid coverage before a federal judge halted that state's reporting policy in April 2019.
• 76% of good-cause exemptions Arkansas approved from July through December 2018 were granted for portal and technical reporting problems, not medical ones.
• 55% of nonelderly adult Medicaid recipients in Arkansas who reported a disability were not on SSI, leaving them subject to the work rules.