Columbus Dispatch...
Medicaid cuts could cost Ohio billions
Republican plan would devastate businesses, jobs, recent study finds
By Catherine Candisky

Friday, June 24, 2011 

Deep cuts in federal funding for Medicaid would not only impact services for the 2 million Ohioans - children, nursing home residents and people with disabilities - who rely on the government program for health care. 

The Republican plan also would cost Ohio thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost business, a study released yesterday found. 

“Every federal Medicaid dollar that flows into a state stimulates state business activity and generates jobs,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of the nonprofit Families USA, which conducted the analysis. 

The report examined the budget adopted by the U.S. House for the federal fiscal year beginning in October. It includes a provision to cut federal funding to state Medicaid programs 5 percent in 2013, 15 percent in 2014 and 33 percent in 2021. The federal government pays about 60 percent of Medicaid costs with states picking up the rest. 

The report, “Jobs at Risk,” found that the initial cuts would cost Ohio $527 million in federal aid, more than 11,000 jobs and more than $1billion in business activity. 

By 2021, the state would lose $3.5 billion in federal aid, nearly 75,000 jobs and as much as $7.9 billion in business. Ohio, the report said, would lose more jobs than all but five other states. 

The plan was proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and is designed to save trillions of dollars during the next decade by transforming Medicaid into a block grant and would give state officials more flexibility in designing their own health-care programs. 

The Senate has rejected the House-passed budget, but lawmakers are still discussing Medicaid cuts. 

“We don’t need to resort to across-the-board Draconian funding cuts that put our most vulnerable Ohioans at risk,” said Cathy Levine, executive director of the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio. 

Such deep cuts in federal funding, she said, will cost jobs and increase the number of those without health insurance. 

Levine suggested that Congress look at reforms being implemented in Ohio and elsewhere that seek to reduce health-care costs through preventative care, rewarding health care providers who keep patients well, and expanding home-care services for seniors and others to keep them out of costly nursing homes.

“Ohio is targeting the 4 percent of enrollees who account for 50 percent of (Medicaid) spending,” she said. 

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch