It’s D-Day for Kasich on Medicaid expansion

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Republican legislators in Ohio are bracing for a veto fight with GOP Gov. John Kasich as the national health care debate hits the 2016 presidential contender on his home turf.

Conservatives have called on Kasich to set a national example by leaving in place a state budget provision calling for freezing new enrollment under Medicaid expansion starting July 1, 2018. He must decide by midnight today.

Allowing the freeze would mark a stunning reversal for Kasich. He’s been one of the Republican Party’s most vocal defenders of the expansion, made possible under the federal health care law reviled, and now targeted, by his party.

Striking the provision, however, threatens to destabilize Ohio’s budget and to harm Ohio’s Republican legislators with their constituents in the politically divided battleground state.

Some 700,000 low-income adults are now covered under Ohio’s expansion, at a cost of almost $5 billion — most of which is picked up by the federal government. The Kasich administration has estimated that 500,000 Ohioans could lose coverage under a freeze within the first 18 months.

Anticipating his veto, Republican budget writers made sure not to count on savings from the freeze to make the budget balance, as the constitution requires — but critics have noted that retaining the expansion continues to force the program’s required costs on the state.

In an email to supporters, the free market Buckeye Institute used the title of Kasich’s recently released book, “Two Paths,” to frame the issue.

“Governor Kasich is big on making choices as to taking one of two paths, and his time for choosing has officially arrived,” the email said. “There is a fiscally responsible option, which is to sign the budget, and there is a decision that would saddle our children and grandchildren with unsustainable levels of government programs and spending for generations, which is to line-item veto the waiver provisions.”

The $65 billion-plus spending bill, which cleared the Legislature on Wednesday, sets Ohio’s budget for the two years starting Saturday.

It orders Kasich to seek a waiver from the federal government allowing Ohio to suspend new enrollment under Medicaid expansion, which made the government health insurance benefit available to more low-income adults, including the working poor, mentally ill and drug addicted.

Kasich’s office said Thursday that it was reviewing and studying the state budget bill before announcing any veto decision.

A tentative override vote is already scheduled for July 6.