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Columbus Dispatch
Legislators mull Medicaid changes rather than expansion 

Ohio Medicaid recipients could face time limits and work requirements under alternatives being discussed in the legislature to Gov. John Kasich’s proposed expansion of tax-funded health care for the poor and disabled. 

Republican leaders also are considering taking thousands of pregnant women, disabled workers and children off the Medicaid rolls and putting them into yet-to-be-established health exchanges. 

“It’s always better to create a path for short-term benefits with long-term incentives to become self-sufficient,” said Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, in a meeting with Dispatch editors and reporters. 

“That’s the questions a lot of people are having about both the president’s health-care program and Medicaid expansion.” 

Faber said majority Republicans want to help the uninsured, but they also want to lower Medicaid costs and ensure the program provides temporary, not permanent, assistance. 

Republican lawmakers have rejected Kasich’s plan to expand Medicaid to another 275,000 poor, uninsured Ohioans. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion for three years and 90 percent or more for the next seven years. 

Republican leaders in the House and Senate, however, say they will consider extending coverage in a more-limited fashion through legislation. 

States operate their own Medicaid programs under federal guidelines. Currently, no state has time limits and work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Imposing such restrictions would require federal approval. 

“I think this is a rare opportunity for us to get additional flexibility from the federal government,” Faber said. 

Faber said he also favors lowering eligibility levels for Medicaid recipients with incomes above 138 percent of the federal poverty level (roughly $31,000 a year for a family of four) who could purchase private coverage through health exchanges created under the new law. Subsidies would be available on a sliding scale. 

Current federal rules ban any changes in eligibility for children until 2019. However, the state could reduce eligibility for roughly 8,600 pregnant women and 5,700 disabled workers without seeking federal approval. 

“That gives us additional savings we can put in other things,” Faber said.On other topics, Faber said... 

Read the rest of the article at the Columbus Dispatch



 
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