“Time is a-wasting already,” said Jessica Kahn, a partner at consultancy McKinsey who specializes in state Medicaid and social services programs. Work requirements are deeply controversial. As such, critics say the work requirements are a thinly veiled strategy to save the government money by booting eligible individuals off of Medicaid. States also want to know how and when the CMS plans to divvy out funding to help them implement work requirements. But costs for Medicaid work requirements often exceed the amount states have been allocated to put them in place, said Melinda Becker Roach, a principal analyst with MACPAC.