Hoosiers who receive health insurance through the Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP, may have to start logging work hours.

An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 people on HIP, Indiana’s Medicaid expansion program, may have to comply with work requirements if they don’t meet certain exemptions.

Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration, FSSA, has been reaching out to people through mail and email to let them know about the new Gateway to Work program.

Covering Kids and Families of Indiana helps organizations and consumers navigate health insurance. Policy director Mark Fairchild says they’ve heard little from people on HIP.

“Some maybe are getting a letter from the state, they want clarification of what it means, whether they should report or not, the numbers are nowhere near what we would have expected,” says Fairchild.

Starting July 1, people who aren’t exempt need to report 20 hours a week of work, volunteer, school and other activities. The reporting can be done by phone, computer or in person.

Fairchild says says people on HIP may be affected.

“Consumers might not understand there still is risk, if they don’t meet the requirement,” says Fairchild.

The requirement will ramp up through the year. Members will need to log 80 hours by July 2020.

Community Groups Oppose New HIP Work Requirements

A coalition of labor, faith and community groups delivered thousands of petitions against Indiana’s HIP work requirements to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office. Kate Hess Pace is the executive director of Hoosier Action and says the work program is flawed.

“It does nothing to add access to Hoosiers’ ability to get work and instead is a costly, ineffective program that creates more governmental red tape and enriches the coffers of some of our largest corporations,” says Hess Pace.

The rally drew a few dozen people who stood outside the offices of Maximus, one of the private companies that facilitates HIP.

Rev. David Greene is with the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis and says, historically, moves to add work requirements result in people losing benefits.

“There is every reason to expect that there will be many bureaucratic mistakes to administering this program as well,” says Greene.