 |
Columbus Dispatch...
Ohioans will get a
health exchange
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
By Joe Vardon and Catherine Candisky
DAYTON - Although Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor repeatedly has ripped the new
federal health-care law, the Kasich administration still plans to fully
implement it in Ohio.
Gov. John Kasich said yesterday that plans are moving forward to create
a statewide marketplace or exchange for health insurance, as mandated
by the Affordable Care Act championed by President Barack Obama.
Kasich said the state has received federal money to plan for building
an exchange, in which individuals and small businesses that don’t have
insurance could find coverage beginning in 2014. He said Taylor, who
also heads Ohio’s Department of Insurance, is to apply soon for a
second round of federal cash.
Kasich’s comments seem to contradict his lieutenant’s recent rhetoric.
Just on Friday, Taylor told The Plain Dealer that the administration
hadn’t decided whether to create an exchange, which came on top of her
comments in a Dispatch column that creating them would be “expensive”
and “time-consuming.”
“I can only think this is about politics,” said Cathy Levine, executive
director of the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio, a
nonprofit advocacy group. “To be a leader in the Republican Party, you
have to act like you oppose the Affordable Care Act even at the same
time that the state is implementing (many of the provisions).”
But Steve Faulkner, Taylor’s communications director, said in an email
last night: “The lieutenant governor says that the Department of
Insurance is looking at our options here in Ohio. Just as the governor
also indicated, she is concerned about the ‘one-size-fits-all’ federal
health-care law that will result in higher costs for everyone and does
nothing to address Ohio’s health-care problems.
“She and the governor are on the same page - they both believe the law
is fraught with problems, but are looking at the best options for
Ohioans.”
By creating a statewide exchange, the Kasich administration would have
the power to regulate the market as it sees fit. If Ohio failed to
create an insurance exchange, the federal law - referred to derisively
by Republicans as “Obamacare” - permits the federal government to
establish an exchange for Ohio.
Kasich said his administration is checking to ensure that accepting
federal dollars would not permit Washington to mandate market rules in
Ohio.
“We have to get in position for this because we don’t want the federal
government coming in here and dictating an exchange,” Kasich said
yesterday after a speaking engagement related to job training in Dayton.
“It is important for people to be able to have a way to shop and find
out what’s available, but we also don’t want a bunch of people in
Washington who can’t seem to get out of their way come in here and try
to run Ohio,” the governor said.
Kasich said yesterday that he and Taylor had met to discuss creating an
insurance exchange and “there’s no disagreement there ... we’re both in
agreement on this.”
“We want to create an exchange, but we don’t want an Obama exchange,”
Kasich said, later adding: “The idea of a place where people can shop
and small businesses can shop, I fully support the idea.”
“They said they intended to implement provisions of the new law and we
assumed that meant all the provisions,” said Col Owens, senior attorney
with Legal Aid of Southwest Ohio.
Owens, who sat on a panel put together by the previous administration
to study how best to create a health exchange, said there was
widespread agreement among members that it was better for the state to
set up its own system than to wait and let the federal government
impose one.
“No matter what your thoughts on (the law), everyone thought Ohio would
be better off if we did it ourselves rather than leaving it to the feds
to do for us.”
Kasich and Taylor both blasted Obama’s health-care law during last
fall’s successful gubernatorial campaign, and Kasich said yesterday
that “Obamacare” would be costly for Ohio.
But in addition to preparing for a health-insurance exchange, Kasich
also is pushing another component of Obama’s law.
The Affordable Care Act promotes managed care for Medicare and Medicaid
recipients. Ohio’s new state budget includes a provision that allows
children with disabilities to be placed in managed-care programs
instead of fees-for-services programs.
“I don’t operate like, if it’s theirs, it’s a bad idea,” Kasich said
last week. “And this is a good idea.”
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
|
