The governor’s campaign is spending six figures this fall on a television ad about a young man named Brad. He lounges around playing video games, eating cheese balls, and collecting welfare. The governor tells us she launched a welfare-to-work requirement so the Brads of the world must work, go to school, or volunteer.

It is a tidy story. It is also not true.

The Medicaid work requirement she is taking credit for was written in Washington, in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Congress passed in 2025, and takes full effect Jan. 1, 2027. She had no role in passing it. The last time Arkansas tried this on its own, starting in 2018, more than 18,000 Arkansans lost their coverage before a federal judge shut it down.

We also learned, more importantly, that it was an expensive way to take coverage away from people. Standing up the requirement cost $26.1 million in state and federal money, and Arkansas paid 17 cents of every dollar of it. Meanwhile Washington was paying 94 cents of every dollar of Arkansas Works coverage that year, so each person the........

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