Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,A federal judge on July 30 declined to block new work requirements for Medicaid recipients that states must implement by Jan. 1, 2027. Judge Richard Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts turned down a request for a preliminary injunction made by Massachusetts and 25 other states to block the work requirements as the states’ legal challenge proceeds. The timing, though, was set by Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, not by the defendant, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in its guidance on implementing the requirements, the judge said. “There is a certain point at which damages fail to justify the issuance of such an extraordinary measure,” Stearns wrote later. The states also opposed the guidance on how to determine whether a person is medically frail, which would exempt them from the work requirements.