Indigenous Groups Are Exempt From Medicaid Work Rules, but Native Hawaiians Aren’t
Kapono Chong-Hanssen is the medical director of Ho‘ōla Lāhui, the Native Hawaiian healthcare system on Kaua‘i. Chong-Hanssen anticipates many of his patients will no longer receive the care they need after new Medicaid work requirements go into effect. (Ashley Mizuo/ýҕl Health News)
WAIANAE, Hawai‘i — Native Hawaiians will need to comply with new work requirements to qualify for Medicaid after being excluded from exemptions carved out for other Indigenous groups, an omission that clinicians fear will exacerbate the challenges the marginalized population already faces in getting healthcare.
In , President Donald Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act will require most adults to work, go to school or enter a training program, or volunteer for at least 80 hours a month. Native Americans and Alaska Natives are exempt from the mandates, which take effect in January.
Of the nearly in the U.S., around 47% live in Hawai‘i. Within the contiguous United States, California, Washington, Nevada, Texas, and Oregon have the largest populations of Native Hawaiians.
Ჹɲʻ’s Medicaid administrator, Meredith Nichols, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services didn’t respond to the state’s request to include an exemption for Native Hawaiians but said she believes the decision came down to the population’s lack of recognition as a tribal nation. Hawai‘i has about , 15% of whom identify as Native Hawaiian, Nichols said.
“We know that when we’ve asked similar questions in the past, it all comes down to federal recognition,” she said.
Ჹɲʻ health administrators met with Trump administration officials in June. Some unsuccessfully pushed to add an exemption to the new law, which would need congressional approval.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, CMS spokesperson Timothy Foster confirmed that the agency met with 16 health centers in Hawai‘i about Medicaid changes but didn’t respond to other questions.
Barriers to Care
Native Hawaiians face many of the same as , including higher risks during pregnancy, higher infant mortality rates, and higher rates of being uninsured than the white population. And in Ჹɲʻ, Native Hawaiians have the among ethnic groups after other Pacific Islanders.
Kapono Chong-Hanssen is the medical director of Ho‘ōla Lāhui, the Native Hawaiian healthcare system on Kaua‘i that also serves the privately owned island of Ni‘ihau, whose 170 full-time residents are predominantly Native Hawaiian. Chong-Hanssen said he anticipates many of his patients will no longer receive the care they need once the new work requirements take effect.
The new requirements will erode the trust healthcare providers worked hard to build among Native Hawaiian patients, who, in response to , are more likely to disengage and “throw the whole system out” when they run into barriers, Chong-Hanssen said. “It just flies in the face of everything that we’re trying to do.”
Beyond medical services, Medicaid covers transportation expenses when patients travel between islands for care. A round-trip ticket between Kaua‘i and O‘ahu, for example, can cost hundreds of dollars.
Congress placed over 200,000 acres of land in a trust for Hawaiian homesteads in 1921 to bring Hawaiians back to their native lands after the U.S. backed the 1893 . Nearly 30,000 Native Hawaiians , while, as of the , more than 34,000 people lived on Hawaiian homelands. The homesteads are often far from Honolulu, where most health services are located.
Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center primarily serves the west side of O‘ahu, which is home to the island’s largest Native Hawaiian population, near four Hawaiian homesteads.
The center’s vice president, Leinaala Kanana, said that many of its patients are geographically isolated and that few jobs are available in the area. Patients also have trouble securing transportation to get to work or finding affordable childcare.
The center’s CEO, Rich Bettini, said Hawai‘i’s high living costs and depressed wages have pushed many people into homelessness, creating another barrier to complying with the new Medicaid requirements. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders make up about 60% of O‘ahu’s . The center estimated about 2,800 of its patients may be affected by the requirements, half of whom are Native Hawaiian.
The annual “cost of living for a family of four in Ჹɲʻ on O‘ahu is $100,000-plus. The average income of our patients is under $30,000 a year,” he said. “That is an enormous gap.”
‘Bigger Fish To Fry’
Native Hawaiians face obstacles to being granted the same exemptions as other Indigenous groups. While several federal laws refer to Native Hawaiians as an Indigenous group, they are not among the 575 tribes recognized by the federal government. Federal recognition can be granted either by Congress or administratively through a process established by the . Native Hawaiians about whether they would even want , with some fearing it would jeopardize their ability to restore Hawaiian independence.
Laws governing Medicaid also don’t acknowledge Native Hawaiians, aside from the 2021 , signed by former President Joe Biden. In the covid-era law, the federal government fully reimbursed Native Hawaiian health centers for Medicaid services for two years. However, all the qualifying Native Hawaiian health centers were in Hawai‘i, where in the country now live.
The federal government fully reimburses Indian Health Service and tribal facilities for healthcare services provided to Native Americans and Alaska Natives. Native Hawaiian instead receive the same reimbursement rate as in the rest of Ჹɲʻ.
Keolamaikalani Dean, the CEO of the King Lunalilo Trust, which provides services for Native Hawaiian elders, pointed to the new Medicaid requirements as just one of many federal policies limiting Native Hawaiians’ healthcare.
“It’s horrible as a policy, but there are bigger fish to fry,” he said.
Dean said he’d rather advocate for giving Native Hawaiian healthcare systems the same full Medicaid reimbursement that the Indian Health Service receives. The change would have greater impact on patients seeking care, he said.
Native Hawaiian advocates said they have been overextended as they work to guard against an onslaught of threats to revoke other federal funding by the Trump administration.
In Trump’s proposed 2027 budget, cuts to Native Hawaiian programs cited the group’s lack of federal recognition as a “tribal nation.” The proposed cuts coincide with challenging education programs and that provides homestead land to some Native Hawaiians at almost no cost, alleging the programs racially discriminate against other groups.
, a nonprofit that oversees the Native Hawaiian healthcare systems in the state, declined to comment for this article. The group is involved in a lawsuit filed by a conservative group aiming to stop a university scholarship for Native Hawaiians pursuing healthcare careers.
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Ჹɲʻ) viewed the exclusion of Native Hawaiians from the exemptions to Medicaid work requirements as an attempt to further erode Native Hawaiians’ Indigenous status, pointing to recent challenges by the Trump administration and lawsuits.
“These are not one-offs,” Tokuda said. “This is a targeted, coordinated attack to undercut the Indigenous status of Native Hawaiians.”
