Ohio House budget plan includes tighter controls on Medicaid expansion spending

Ohio House Republicans this week included in their budget proposal a plan to require more frequent approval of state funding for Medicaid expansion (Source: “Medicaid expansion obstacle for Ohio House budget,” Toledo Blade, May 2, 2017).

The proposed two-year budget, passed by the House this week, would put the state’s share of Medicaid expansion in a separate fund and then require the administration to seek approval every six months from the Ohio Controlling Board, a quasi-legislative budgetary panel, to release its match to the billions drawn down in federal funds. 

The federal government currently picks up 95 percent of the tab, but that will gradually drop to 90 percent by 2020.

Release of the money would be conditional upon the state seeking approval from the federal government of new work requirements within the expansion population as well as for a co-premium plan proposed by Mr. Kasich.

House Bill 49 does not include a controversial proposal floated by conservatives that, if adopted, would have marked the beginning of the end for the Medicaid expansion. The amendment would have prohibited the program from adding uninsured people to its rolls above the more than 700,000 it already serves.