Our Work

The Health Policy Institute of Ohio has released a new data brief titled Healthcare Affordability Challenges for Working Ohioans that presents current data on the cost of basic needs for working Ohioans, access to adequate health insurance and the cost of health care for Ohio families.

“Many Ohio families are facing significant cost of living challenges, of which healthcare expenses are an increasingly pressing problem,” according to the brief. “While having adequate health insurance is important, individuals with all coverage types may face large medical bills, leading to difficult financial decisions. When individuals forgo care due to cost, it can lead to even larger expenditures later in life, including expensive emergency department visits and inpatient hospitalizations.”

Recent state and federal policy changes are likely to be consequential for health care affordability in Ohio, especially among people enrolled in Medicaid and Federal Health Insurance Marketplace plans (see HPIO’s recently released fact sheet on state and federal policy changes). Given the high healthcare costs and challenging situations that many Ohio families already face, policy changes impacting insurance access and out-of-pocket spending may continue to exacerbate financial insecurity and disparities across different communities.

The data brief is the second in a planned series of HPIO publications that includes data and analysis about the current challenges facing working Ohioans and examines how recent federal and state policy changes will impact access to care and affordability in Ohio.

As children in Ohio and across the country begin a new school year, data shows that while Ohio ranks 10thin the nation for fourth grade reading, just 35% of the state’s public-school students scored proficient or above in reading comprehension in 2022, as illustrated above. That was a slight decline from 2019, when 36% of students scored proficient or above.

There was also a racial disparity in fourth grade reading proficiency, with Black and Hispanic students more than half as likely to be proficient by fourth grade as their white peers. The percentage of students of all races demonstrating reading proficiency dropped during the COVID pandemic.

Last school year was the first in which a new state requirement went into effect mandating that all Ohio school districts adopt curriculum that aligns with the science of reading, which is based on decades of research that shows how the human brain learns to read and incorporates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

That requirement was championed by Gov. Mike DeWine and was approved as part of the 2023-2024 state budget.

Ohio is one of 40 states and the District of Columbia that has passed laws or implemented new policies related to evidence-based reading instruction since 2013, according to an Education Week analysis.

For many years, HPIO has produced publications that explore the evidence demonstrating the strong connection between education and health.

Both children and adults in Ohio turn to emergency departments for preventable dental issues at far higher rates than the national average.

In 2022, Ohio children on Medicaid were nearly twice as likely as children nationwide to visit the ED for dental caries. And Ohio adults experienced higher rates of ED visits for non-traumatic dental conditions than the rest of the country, as illustrated above.

These patterns highlight gaps in access to preventive oral health services and underscore the need for new approaches to address the issue. One of those approaches is the MORE Care® Ohio pilot, which brings medical and dental providers together to integrate oral health into pediatric primary care, expanding access and prevention for children across the state.

The pilot, which is highlighted in CareQuest Institute for Oral Health’s Partners in Progress report, demonstrates how collaboration, training and data-driven approaches can bridge gaps in care and reduce disparities, especially in rural areas. To advance this work, HPIO and Oral Health Ohio recently convened stakeholders from across Ohio to discuss findings, share perspectives and explore strategies for scaling integrated care models statewide.

For more evidence-informed strategies to improve oral health in Ohio, see the State Oral Health Plan 2023-2027.