Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney is calling on Congress to block new federal rules governing Medicaid work requirement exemptions that would require cancer patients and others with debilitating conditions to document that their illness impairs their ability to work or risk losing coverage.

The rules, released by the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., govern implementation of the "medical frailty" exemption established under H.R. 1. Under the new framework, a cancer diagnosis alone does not automatically qualify a patient for exemption. Instead, patients must demonstrate with documentation that the disease and its treatments constitute a work impairment. The rules are set to take effect January 1, 2027.

Speaking on the House floor, Courtney cited the Congressional Budget Office's projection that the underlying legislation will cut $1 trillion from Medicaid beginning in 2027, with 10 million Americans projected to lose coverage. He referenced a coalition of 48 patient organizations opposing the rule, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the ALS Association, the MS Society, and the March of Dimes, among others.

"A patient suffering from pancreatic cancer, brain cancer, breast cancer, lymphoma cancer will have to demonstrate with job searches and employer paperwork that the disease and the debilitating therapies are an 'impairment' — a hopelessly vague standard that will rob desperately ill patients of care," Courtney said. "To put it in a nutshell, the definition of 'medical frailty' is no longer a medical diagnosis by a doctor, but a subjective employability standard that makes no sense. There is a word for this, Mr. Speaker. It is inhumane."

Courtney called on Secretary Kennedy and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to withdraw the rule immediately.