Ohio House relents on Medicaid
House could vote to override Kasich veto later, speaker says.
Ohio House RepubCOLUMBUS — licans on Thursday backed off a threat to override Gov. John Kasich’s veto of a provision that would freeze enrollment in expanded Ohio Medicaid a — plan that the governor warned would lead to 500,000 people losing health care coverage.
House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville, said that he has the required 60 votes to override a veto but decided to wait to see what changes Con- gress makes to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, which is a state and federally funded health care program for low-income and disabled people.
An override vote may come this fall when legislators return to Columbus, Rosenberger said. They have until December 2018.
In 2013, Ohio expanded Medicaid coverage to single adults who make up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The expansion, which was a key piece of Obamacare, led to 725,000 additional people enrolling in Ohio Medicaid, which now covers 3 million.
The federal government picks up 95 percent of the tab for the expansion group and 63 percent for the others on Ohio Medicaid.
Conservative lawmakers, who view it as unsustainable, inserted into the budget bill a provision to freeze new enrollment under Medicaid expansion starting July 1, 2018.
As an influx of opioid DAYTON— overdose deaths continues to devastate the Miami Valley, an Ohio lawmaker sat down with local families in Dayton to hear about the impact addiction has had on their lives.
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, joined local organization Families of Addicts heard from recovering addicts about their journey to sobriety, and listened to family members still struggling with the ramifications of watching loved ones fall to addiction. Portman recently worked to author the bipartisan Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA).
Portman’s visit was part of a tour of the state to meet with Ohioans in recovery and on the front lines dealing with the epidemic. Locally, Montgomery County caught national attention last month after a series of stories produced by NBC called the county the “most opioid addicted county” in the U.S.
The claim that Montgomery County tops all U.S. counties in overdoses came from a quote from Sheriff Phil Plummer, who said, “Per capita, we’re number one in the nation in overdose deaths.”
A Dayton Daily News analysis of available data shows Montgomery County is certainly among the hardest hit by the opioid crisis, but there is no conclusive data from either 2016 or 2017 to know which county nationally is the per capita leader.
The coroner’s office reports an unofficial count of 385 deaths as of June 22, compared to 2016’s record of 349 before the first half of the year is up.
“This county is probably one of the worse in the country,” Portman said. “The problem is getting worse and not better.”
He sat in a room with more than a dozen people who shared stories of how heroin and opioid addiction changed their lives. Families of Addicts (FOA) founder Lori Erion, 57, of New Carlisle started the support initiative to reduce the stigma of addiction and to help influence opinion and police on the value of recovery.
The organization hosts weekly meeting where families and people affected by addictions can come for support and more education on the issue. Portman sat with the group, and listened to stories of how they became addicted — many who were first prescribed pain pills after an injury or surgery and switched to heroin or fentanyl.
Billy Brokshmidt, an advocate and team leader for FOA, told Portman that he first started using drugs when he was in the military. For 15 years, he battled addiction and couldn’t get clean. Brokschmidt, now sober, said FOA was the first group that really clicked with him.
“It gave me a perspective I’ve never really had before,” he said. “People were in recovery and they we’re having fun. This was the first one I tried where I was having fun.”
What worked for him at this group? He never felt judged, and was able to share what was working for him in recovery. With Families of Addicts, there wasn’t a wrong way to stay clean, he said.
Portman’s permanent subcommittee on investigations also recently held a hearing on stopping illicit drugs from being shipped in the U.S. During the hearing, he urged Congress to act on his bipartisan legislation called the Synthetics Trafficking & Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act.
During a stop in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Portman raised his concern about future access to Medicaid for low-income Ohioans, including those using it to receive drug addiction treatment. Portman said he supports a plan that will improve the health care system while fighting the opioid epidemic — one that has ravaged parts of Ohio.
He also said the recent addition of $45 billion in federal funds to combat the opioid crisis was an important step.