Wednesday, July 5, 12noon-1pm, Ohio Statehouse

The Ohio General Assembly wants to freeze Medicaid enrollments!

This week, Ohio’s legislature passed a budget bill that freezes enrollments in expanded Medicaid after July 1, 2018. The bill has been passed to Governor Kasich; he is expected to veto the language that freezes enrollments. If that happens, the legislature may have the votes to override his veto and pass the enrollment freeze into law.

In addition to ending new enrollment, the freeze also precludes existing enrollees who have temporarily cycled off of Medicaid from coming back on. This means that once individuals cycle off for any reason (including seasonal work, paperwork, process, working more hours, briefly gaining other coverage etc.), they can no longer re-enroll under expansion even if eligible by today’s standards. Looking at experiences in other states, this could lead to over half of the current enrollees losing coverage in just the first year of implementation and 72% of existing enrollees [approximately 500,000 Ohioans] losing coverage within 18 months.

The Ohio House has scheduled a session for Thursday morning [July 6] at 9am. In order to show legislators how important this issue is, there will be a rally at the Statehouse on Wednesday, July 5.

Please join the Rally to Protect Medicaid, Wednesday, July 5, 12noon - 1pm, at the Ohio Statehouse. Ohio’s legislators need to know that they must not take health care away from hundreds of thousands of low-income Ohioans. More details about the rally may be found on this flyer.

If you are unable to attend the rally, please contact your state legislators. It is important they hear from their constituents that freezing Medicaid enrollments will hurt people and is not the answer to their budget issues.