Ohio's Sen. Rob Portman is on the record as one of four Republican senators opposed to the House Republican's Trumpcare plan that would slash Medicaid funding. This new analysis should cement his opposition and maybe even make him do more than send stern letters.
The House Republican plan to overhaul Obamacare would cost Ohio $19 billion to $26 billion in federal funding for Medicaid over six years, according to an analysis released today by the Center for Community Solutions.
The massive cuts, the Ohio-based research group concluded, would lead to substantial reductions in eligibility, services, or payments to health-care providers in the tax-funded health insurance program serving more than 3 million poor and disabled people, or 1 in 4 Ohioans. […]
The largest decreases would be in federal aid for children, the disabled, and adults, and those losses would increase if enhanced reimbursement for the Medicaid expansion population is ended earlier, as some in Congress and President Donald Trump are proposing. For example, monthly funding for a child enrolled in Medicaid would drop 21 percent under proposed funding caps and by a third for adults.
That's not the only study to show devastating consequences for the state. Policy Matters Ohio concluded that the state "will be forced to abolish Medicaid expansion because of lower federal aid, stripping health coverage from 700,000 working-age adults, most of whom have jobs." That's not going to go over well back home, the state that has the dubious distinction of leading the opioid epidemic.