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The Ohio budget would cut Medicaid for nearly 770,000 Ohioans if the feds cut their payment percentage
By: Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — There are 769,869 Ohioans receiving Medicaid through expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act – which could end under a provision in Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget.
The budget analysis from the Legislative Service Commission, which reviews legislation for lawmakers, said: “The bill specifies that if the FMAP for medical assistance provided to Group VIII enrollees is set below 90%, ODM must immediately terminate medical assistance for members of the group.”
It’s a money issue, said Ohio Medicaid Director Maureen Corcoran.
“If they drop it by 5%, if they go from just 90% to 85%, that would cost the state about $380 million,” Corcoran said. “And if they went all the way down to 65%—our regular amount—then they’d be dropping it by five times that. So we’re up near $2 billion.”
The proposed federal budget from majority Republicans in the US House would cut $880 billion from Medicaid over the next decade, and scaling back that match is among the possibilities.
Corcoran said talks continue with Ohio lawmakers on that trigger language.
“The discussion that we’ve been having with the legislature is really around, we need a clear trigger so that if this happens there can be additional conversation with the General Assembly. They they would have to act. They control the purse,” Corcoran said.
And she added that even if the budget passes with the trigger language intact and if the federal government cuts the percentage, it won’t be the immediate impact that advocates for Medicaid expansion fear.
“Nothing like this occurs overnight, so it’s not that you’re going to show up at the hospital the next day and not have coverage,” Corcoran said. “It all takes guidance from the federal government to tell you, you know, what you have to do. And all that. So we don’t know how much time, but there would be, you know, some back and forth in some time that would be needed before any kind of terminations of individuals would occur.”
At least nine other states also have similar trigger language that might cut that coverage.
This comes as Ohio is also requesting permission from the Trump administration to impose work requirements on the Medicaid expansion population. Recipients would have to work 80 hours a month unless they’re over 55, already enrolled in school or training or in a recovery program, or have a serious serious physical or mental illness. If the request is granted, Corcoran said it’s assumed around 62,000 people receiving Medicaid through expansion would not meet those exceptions and would either need to add work hours or lose their coverage.
Mt. Healthy is looking to cut school security, eliminate substitutes at the middle and high school levels entirely, and may charge fees for kids to attend preschool. The district is also considering renting out its early learning center to bring in more revenue.
Even with those cuts, school leaders would still need to find millions more to cut to reach solvency.
Trinh worries that by the time she’s a senior, her academic opportunities will be slim.
“I’m only a sophomore, so I’m not sure when I graduate if I’ll have the resources I need,” she said.
School leaders claim they’re running out of things to cut to meet their budget. Mt. Healthy has a levy on the ballot this May. Even if it passes, it’ll only make a dent in the deficit, so the school is looking to Columbus for a lifeline.
Conversations at the Statehouse
Republican Ohio State Senator Bill Blessing, whose district includes Mt. Healthy, introduced a bill in late 2024 that would turn the school’s $10.7 million loan into a grant, effectively resolving the debt and clearing a path to solvency. But the bill didn’t get far before the end of legislative session.
Blessing claims legislators, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce and the state auditor are wary of such a bill because they’re worried it might give other public school districts the greenlight to spend money without consequences.
“We have found there’s been some general hesitancy towards this, and their reasoning is, ‘Well, there is a certain degree of moral hazard to bailout,’” Blessing said.
Still, he thinks a bailout is what Mt. Healthy needs, so he plans to reintroduce the bill later this year.
If it comes at all, the financial relief likely won’t arrive until later this year or next year, unless it gets slipped into a modified version of the state’s budget bill.
As it stands now, it appears that budget may likely hurt Mt. Healthy’s financial situation rather than help.
An analysis of Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed biennial budget bill reveals the proposal would cut current funding for traditional public schools by $103.4 million over two years while adding funding to programs for charter and private schools.