New Medicaid work requirements expected to impact more than 20,000 in Henrico
An estimated 21,716 people in Henrico will be required to submit proof of employment or community engagement to remain enrolled in Medicaid starting next year, according to Henrico leaders.
At a Henrico Board of Supervisors work session on Tuesday, Henrico Department of Social Services Director Gretchen Brown said that nearly one-third of the 70,555 total people in the county enrolled in Medicaid healthcare coverage will need to adhere to new work requirements mandated by H.R.1 (also known as the "Big Beautiful Bill") passed by Congress last summer.
The new requirements would mandate Medicaid enrollees ages 19-64 to demonstrate that they have worked at least 80 hours a month (a monthly income of $580), or that they have participated in a work training program, education program, or community service for 80 hours a month, in order to continue receiving benefits.
Enrollees now will be required to demonstrate eligibility every six months instead of annually, which will increase the workload for Henrico’s Department of Social Services, said Brown.
H.R.1 allows certain enrollees to be exempt from the new work requirements, which would likely lower the number of people impacted slightly, but the county has not confirmed how many people would be exempt. Exemptions would include caregivers of a child under the age 14, individuals participating in drug or alcohol treatment, veterans with a total disability rating, and individuals deemed “medically frail.”
Eligibility requirements will also change for Medicaid enrollees who are non-citizens, impacting about 575 people in Henrico. While about 20 groups of non-citizens were previously eligible for Medicaid, now only three groups will be eligible: lawful permanent residents who have at least five years of residency, Cuban-Haitian entrants, and Compact of Free Association migrants.
However, these changes will not be applied to non-citizens who are pregnant or under age 19. Non-citizens who lose Medicaid coverage still will be eligible for Emergency Medicaid, which covers treatment for severe or life-threatening conditions but not routine or preventative care.
While these changes will immediately affect thousands in Henrico this coming January, Brown said she is also concerned about the long-term impacts on communities who lose coverage to healthcare.
“You may not see the immediate impact, but somebody who goes a year without necessary medication or medical treatment, or five years without that, in your community has potential big impacts,” Brown said.
Henrico’s Department of Social Services is anticipating a bigger workload for an already understaffed team. The Medicaid changes will likely lead to staff having to process more renewals and more complex cases, and prompt more customer calls and visits and the need for additional staff training.
Brown said that the new requirements will also cause people to cycle off of and onto Medicaid enrollment more frequently, leading to a “constant churn of processing cases.”
In September, county leaders will be introducing an amendment to the 2026-2027 County Budget to fund seven new social services positions that would help ease the additional workload. The department’s benefits team, which works with individuals on Medicaid, currently has 16 vacancies.
Henrico has already seen the impacts from changes to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility requirements last year: the number of households in the county receiving SNAP benefits dropped from 18,652 in September 2025 to 15,278 as of July 2026. From January to July this year, there also was a 6.5% increase in the number of SNAP applications in Henrico.
Henrico supervisors also pass Tuckahoe Park improvement project, accept county awards
At a meeting later on Tuesday, Henrico supervisors approved a $13.8-million construction contract for improvements to Tuckahoe Park and other annual contracts for slurry seal and asphalt work in the county.
Supervisors also passed new ordinances that place more restrictions on shared-use paths and prohibit Class 3 electric bicycles from using certain county paths, and allow the county to round certain cash transactions as pennies become less readily available. An ordinance that would set wastewater discharge limits and monitoring requirements for PFAS chemicals was deferred until Sept. 8 to allow the full 30 days of public comment.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, several Henrico residents spoke out against the county’s contract with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that Henrico has partnered with since 2022. Henrico has a total of 128 automatic license plate reader cameras throughout the county that take photos of every vehicle that passes through.
James Porter, who lives off of Mayland Drive in the Three Chopt District, said that there are a total of nine cameras in the 3.5-square-mile area where he lives. He expressed concerns about the potential for police officers to misuse the cameras for stalking and harassment, citing several national cases of police officers or former officers using Flock cameras to stalk ex-partners or rivals.
“The tech involved with these cameras can be, and already has been, used to track down, stalk, and harass private citizens for personal reasons unrelated to law enforcement,” Porter said. “There is no compelling reason that Henrico County needs nine of these in just my neighborhood. . . These cameras need to go.”
Last week, Henrico leaders announced that the county had revoked 10 fire investigators’ access to the Flock system after determining that the access had violated a Virginia law passed last year. Henrico County Attorney Andrew Newby said the incident was “an oversight that was corrected as soon as it was discovered.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Henrico supervisors and County Manager John Vithoulkas celebrated county staff members who earned a total of 58 achievement awards from the National Association of Counties and Virginia Association of Counties for innovative government programs.
It was the 21st consecutive year that Henrico County had earned the most NACO awards of any Virginia county, said Vithoulkas. The 56 NACO awards and two VACO awards were given to both Henrico Schools and county programs.
Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s government and education reporter. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.
