The Healthy Ohio Program pulls the rug out from under the number of positive health and human service investments included in the bill by putting the health and stability of over a million Ohioans at risk.
AOF strongly opposes the last minute inclusion of the Healthy Ohio Program in the state budget bill. The proposal shifts costs to parents and families who are already struggling, reduces access and coverage of necessary care and increases administrative burdens and costs to the state.
The proposal required Medicaid recipients to pay premiums for their health care.
Individuals who cannot afford to pay premiums would be moved to a new “basic” Medicaid program under diminished covered care. The “basic” program would not be required to cover benefits like prescriptions, addiction screening, ambulances, oxygen, mental health counseling, wheelchairs and other services.
Ohio’s Medicaid program as it exists today – without barriers for coverage – conclusively demonstrates that boosting access to health care, including addiction and mental health services, has been critical to the health, financial stability and employment of hundreds of thousands of Ohioans.
We urge the Ohio House of Representatives to continue to recognize not only the improved health and stability outcomes from Medicaid expansion, but the financial outcomes and savings the program affords our state.
Read our full statement here