Ohio’s Medicaid expansion is working. It has transformed lives of more than 1.2 million people over the last four years, helping hundreds of thousands of Ohioans get back to work. The Ohio General Assembly is likely to come back after Christmas to override vetoes by Gov. John Kasich. There is talk that they may vote to override his 2017 veto of the freeze on Medicaid expansion.
The freeze will result in significant coverage losses and could lock enrollees in poverty, while forfeiting significant resources to fight Opioid abuse.
Here are some of the ways Ohio’s Medicaid expansion is working:
Nearly 300,000 Ohioans who signed up through the Medicaid expansion have ended their participation because of an increased income, finding a job or getting health care through an employer.
83.5 percent of Medicaid expansion enrollees reporting that the program made it easier to work because they were easier to treat their health conditions.
One-third of Medicaid expansion enrollees are parents, and we know that children are more likely to be covered if their parents are covered.
Children suffer most when their parents battle addition. Medicaid expansion put Ohio ahead of the curve in providing treatment options for those battling addiction.
96 percent of expansion enrollees received some form of treatment through Medicaid, including the most relied upon treatments for combating opioid addiction (medication assisted treatment, rehab and counseling).
Since the beginning of the expansion, almost 96,000 Ohioans enrolled in it have been diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder.
Substance abuse is a major barrier to hiring. In April 2018, the U.S. Labor Department attributed 20 percent of the decline in the labor force among men ages 25 to 54 to opioid addiction.