Top House Republicans have filed a bill that would enact sweeping changes in Kentucky's system of public benefits — including Medicaid, food stamps and temporary cash aid for the poor — adding work requirements, drug tests and benefit cuts that opponents say would be disastrous.

"This is the most severe attack on Kentucky's safety net in our state's history," said Dustin Pugel, a policy analyst with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. "I've never seen anything like this.

"This is the war on the poor," he said.

House Speaker David Osborne, a Prospect Republican and primary sponsor of House Bill 3, filed Feb. 20 — the deadline for House bills this legislative session — described it as a bill meant to encourage more Kentuckians to work.

"I do believe it helps transition people off public assistance and back into the workforce," said Osborne, who is joined as sponsor of HB 3 by Rep. David Meade, a Stanford Republican and House speaker pro tem.

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But advocates familiar with the bill disagree, saying it's a compilation of conservative talking points meant to cut public aid to the poor.

"It's designed to cut people off from assistance," said Jason Dunn, with the advocacy group Kentucky Voices for Health. "This pulls all the bad ideas from past years and adds a couple of news ones and rolls them into one bill."

The programs are funded through a combination of state and federal funds.

Changes proposed by HB 3 would:

Slash the amount of money available for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, cash aid also known as welfare. The bill would cut the amount of direct aid available to poor families from 63 percent to 15 percent, redirecting it to programs such as child care assistance and work training and support. Based on funds spent last year, that would cut direct aid to families — including grandparents or other relatives raising children removed from home because of abuse or neglect— from $171 million to $40 million.

Require anyone using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, to use an electronic benefit card that bears a photo ID of the individual. The grocery would have to verify it's a photo of the person using the card. Also, most adults getting SNAP benefits would have to prove they are working 20 hours a week or participating in a "workfare" program to be created by the state.

Build work requirements into state law for most "able-bodied" adults who get health coverage through the state Medicaid program, requirements the administration of Gov. Matt Bevin already is seeking to introduce through policy with the approval of the Trump administration.

Require drug testing — initially at their own expense — for all adults receiving or seeking any of the above benefits if they have a "felony or misdemeanor history of substance abuse." The state would reimburse those who pass the drug screen. Drug tests cost from about $20 to $200, depending on the type of test ordered, according to the prices of a vendor used by judges in Jefferson County.

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The bill has been assigned to the House Health and Family Services Committee.

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat and a member of that committee, said she was shocked by the scope and potential impact of HB 3.

"It's terrible," she said. "It's probably unconstitutional. I think it is just another assault on poor people who may be in tough shape."

But Osborne said the measure is meant to help get people off public assistance by adding more requirements for work and opportunities for what the bill calls "community engagement" — work, volunteering or work training. It is not meant to penalize anyone, and it developed from discussions among lawmakers about the issue, he said.

"It was just a conversation that has evolved over the past year and a half," he said.

Osborne said a key goal is "to increase our workforce participation," adding "we have some of the lowest workforce participation rates in the country."

Kentucky's unemployment rate has been at the lowest rate in about a decade, around 4 percent.

But Osborne said that doesn't take into account the higher rate of Kentuckians who are not working and not actively seeking work.

"We have less than 60 percent of total working-age population that is participating in the workplace," he said.

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Pugel, from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said about 59.7 percent of adult Kentuckians participate in the labor force and around 40 percent don't, making it eighth in the nation among states with adults not participating in the workforce.

But that statistic includes students, parents who choose not to work in order to care for children, individuals with disabilities and retirees. It's incorrect to assume that all are able to work but declining to do so, Pugel said.

And the number of adult Kentuckians participating in the workforce has risen as the economy improves, he said,

Pugel said he's most concerned about the overall impact of HB 3 on poor Kentuckians who rely on Medicaid, welfare payments and food stamps to survive, many who work at part-time or low-wage jobs without benefits.

Of special concern, he said, is the steep cuts to cash assistance through TANF, which only provides small monthly payments — mostly to poor single mothers with children.

About 34,000 people in Kentucky — around 28,000 of them children — receive such benefits that amount to about $216 per household per month. Under cuts proposed in HB 3, the aid would be sharply reduced.

"These are children," Pugel said. "The TANF cuts by themselves are just cruel and unnecessary."

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Osborne disputed that, saying the funds aren't being cut — just redirected "to other programs that I think are better suited to helping people transition back into the workforce," such as child care assistance and work training,

"It's not taking any money away from the program," he said. "It's just reallocating it."

He said many low-income relatives seeking help from the state have cited costs of child care as a problem.

But Pugel said impoverished families and grandparents or other relatives raising children removed from their homes need direct aid, especially since the state ended Kinship Care in 2013, a program that paid relatives $300 a month per child to offset costs.

Even losing $100 to $200 a month in TANF funds could hurt such families, he said.

"The overwhelming majority of those who are going to be hurt are kids, very poor kids," he said.

Dunn, with the Kentucky Voices for Health, said he questions the overall intent of the bill.

"Hopefully, people are getting wise to the fact that these are are ideological attacks on people who are poor, the vast majority of whom do not abuse their benefits," he said.

Osborne said because it's late in the legislative session, he isn't sure if he will be able to push the bill through to passage this session.

"At this juncture of the session, its going to have an uphill battle because of time," Osborne said. "Certainly it is not impossible that we could still move legislation."

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Deborah Yetter: 502-582-4228; dyetter@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @d_yetter.