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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...
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the rest of the article at the
Columbus Dispatch
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