WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, the ranking Democrats on the Senate Finance and House Energy and Commerce committees, asked the Trump administration in a letter released Thursday to delay new Medicaid work-reporting rules set to take effect Jan. 1^2,13,17.

The letter, posted by House Energy and Commerce Democrats and described in identical States Newsroom copy across many state outlets, told officials to use discretion so states have more time to implement the rules and so eligible people are not dropped^2,13,17. The two members are slated to become committee chairs in January if Democrats take control of Congress, the same reports said^2,13.

The New York Times published a separate article Friday whose headline said the administration was delaying enforcement; that page was behind a paywall and is not used for facts here¹.

Republicans wrote the work rules into the 2025 domestic policy law often called the “big, beautiful” law, the States Newsroom accounts said^2,17. Those accounts said many Medicaid enrollees ages 19 to 65 would have to work, do community service or attend an education program for at least 80 hours a month, with listed exceptions such as pregnancy, parents of dependent children, tribal members, people in or recently out of foster care, and people recently released from jail^2,13,17.

The statute also lets the health secretary define people who are “medically frail” or have special medical needs, the reports said^2,17. CMS issued a rule this summer on how states should apply that term; a federal judge later paused that piece in ongoing litigation, which Wyden and Pallone said makes it harder for states to go live in January^2,13,17.

They asked CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz to revisit which diagnoses count as medically frail^2,17. “In one example, even a diagnosis of cancer could be insufficient to meet CMS’ extra-statutory definition of ‘medically frail,’” they wrote².

The letter also asked Oz to approve good-faith exemptions states have already sent, and said Democrats would oversee those decisions^2,13,17. The reports cited a July 2025 Congressional Budget Office estimate that changes in the broader 2025 law would leave 10 million people without health coverage^2,13. West Virginia officials were cited as saying about 40,000 of 160,000 Medicaid enrollees in that state could lose coverage in January under the work rules^2,21.

What these readable sources do not establish is whether CMS has granted a nationwide hold-harmless period, which states will seek exemptions, or how the medically frail appeal will end^1,2.