The Ohio House is considering overriding Republican Gov. John Kasich’s June 30 Medicaid veto that stopped a freeze on Medicaid expansion in the state.
According to an Associated Press release, a memo circulating among House Republicans said Republican Speaker Cliff Rosenberger “would just like to see” where they stood on the veto after efforts in Washington, D.C., to repeal the federal health care bill failed.
About 700,000 Ohioans are currently covered under medicaid, according the AP release. The Kasich administration claims 500,000 Ohioans would lose coverage in the first 18 months of a medicaid freeze.
“This provision would require the director of the department of Medicaid to seek a federal waiver to allow the department to prohibit virtually every Ohioan age 19 through 64 with an income at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level who is not already enrolled in Medicaid, from enrolling in the program after July 1, 2018,” Kasich said in his veto. “This provision is in violation of federal law which prohibits states from denying coverage to members of an otherwise eligible group.”
Proponents for freezing Medicaid have argued the cost — around $5 billion according to the AP report — is too much to sustain with Ohio's budget.
Republican Ohio State Rep. Larry Householder told AP that Medicaid expansion was taking up too much of Ohio’s budget.
“The numbers are terrifying,” he said. “We need to take back some of those resources and have them to spend on other things.”
According to the AP report, the Kasich administration has said Medicaid spending has come under budget with a combined $3.6 billion for the past two fiscal years.
