Medicaid OKs Ohio plan to reduce lead in homes

Medicaid approved a plan this week that will remove hurdles and expand the ways Ohio can use federal healthcare money to keep children in families with low incomes safe from lead (Source: “Medicaid-approved changes remove barriers for Ohio’s lead clean-up program,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 20, 2019).

The state first pursued new funding for lead abatement in 2017 through its Children’s Health Insurance Program. In its biennial budget that year, the state committed to spending about $300,000 to leverage $10 million in Medicaid funding for lead abatement work in high-risk homes across the state.

But the program was not as successful as hoped, with just $1.2 million of the available $10 million spent in the two-year period. Instead of expanding the program in his first budget, Gov. Mike DeWine opted to create a new version of the plan, approved by the Centers for Medicaid Services, that eliminates some of the bureaucratic impediments that kept property owners and tenants from being able to use the money to remove lead hazards.

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