Early Enrollment in Working Healthy: Program Features Make a Difference

Abstract

Working Healthy allows persons with disabilities the opportunity to increase their earnings and assets without jeopardizing their Medicaid health insurance coverage. Working Healthy has been in operation in Kansas for almost a year now. In that time, enrollment has steadily increased and premium payers continue to constitute more than half of all enrollees. The initial accomplishments of Working Healthy are especially gratifying in the current depressed economic setting. Through their enrollment, many people with disabilities are now working more, paying taxes, and putting money into the state’s economy by virtue of having additional disposable income—all without fear of losing their health insurance coverage. However, there are a few areas of concern in its early stages that are explored in this article