U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday ruled that Governor Asa Hutchinson had illegally required strict reporting requirements in order for Arkansans to keep their Medicaid healthcare coverage.

“The Governor and DHS need to be laser focused on making sure those 19,000 Arkansans get their healthcare back immediately. To appeal this decision is just simply advancing campaign-style coffee shop politics instead of looking to good policy,” said Chairman Michael John Gray. “It was a bad idea, an even worse implementation, and it shouldn’t take federal courts to show us that we need to do better.”

A federal judge Wednesday struck down Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas and Kentucky, saying President Donald Trump’s administration, in approving the requirements, had failed to consider the effect they would have on the program’s goal of providing health coverage to needy people.

In a pair of rulings in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge James Boasberg vacated the Trump administration’s approval of the requirements in both states and sent them back to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar for further review. Read more Democrat-Gazette coverage here >>>