A bill that would have required able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work at a job, go to school, or do volunteer work has died on a tie vote in a Wyoming House Committee.

Senate File 97 had passed the Wyoming Senate on a 25-5 vote last week.

But it ran into a roadblock on Tuesday in the House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee, where it was defeated on a 4-4 tie vote.

Supporters of the bill in the Senate, such as Natrona County Republican Senator Charles Scott, had argued the bill would be good for low-income people because it would get them into the workforce and give them a chance to improve their job skills. Scott said a similar national welfare bill passed in the 1990s had proven to help low-income people.

But in Senate debate last week, Sen. Chris Rothfus [D-Albany County] had argued that the people targeted by the bill were probably already looking for jobs ''or maybe even two or three jobs."

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