Ohio lawmakers ask federal government to approve Medicaid work requirements

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio’s Medicaid work requirements could soon change if the federal government gives the state the green light.

“Really, we need to get people back on the field,” Senator Kyle Koehler (R-Springfield) said.

Koehler is behind Senate Concurrent Resolution 5. It is a proposal to require Ohioans who are under 55 and “able bodied” to go back to work if they want to stay on Medicaid.

“We’re not trying to push people off Medicaid expansion,” he said. “We’re just trying to ask them to get back on the field and start contributing.”

The resolution will go to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where it will need to gain approval in order for Ohio to put work requirements in place. 

Koehler said he thinks his proposal is flexible, giving an estimated 61,000 Ohioans the option to work, go to school, or participate in something like a drug dependency program 80 hours a month to stay on the health care plan. The proposal gives Ohioans a year to figure it out.

“It’s not a big commitment, it’s not a full-time job,” Koehler said. “That can be getting a job at McDonald’s. Learning to show up. Learning to be on time. Learning to work underneath the direction from a manager. Those are the things we want to see happen.”

But Representative Derrick Hall (D-Akron) said he thinks this proposal is misguided. He said while he is not against the idea of work requirements, these ones won’t help Ohioans get back to work.

“There is no empirical evidence to suggest that,” Hall said.

Hall said there are “multiple holes” to this proposal that state Republicans are not accounting for.

“Some examples would include scenarios around folks who have transportation issues, folks that are our caregivers, folks that have certain mental and physical health conditions,” Hall said. “Are you going to go out and find this person a better paying job so they can afford better transportation? Are we going to go into rural counties and start passing out bus passes to everybody?”

Hall said a year also does not give Ohioans enough time to figure out things like care for a disabled person they may be taking care of, transportation, or even the time to land a job that is sustainable.  

“A year may sound like a long time. But folks who live in these circumstances, what I would ask you is what in their circumstances would we expect to change in that year,” he said.

“It isn’t an issue of kicking people off Medicaid,” Koehler said. “It isn’t an issue of saving the state dollars. It is an issue of helping people move slowly from being dependent to independent.”

But Hall said this proposal risks leaving at least 2% of Ohioans without Medicaid, in turn increasing costs on taxpayers in the long run and leaving those uninsured Ohioans in the lurch.

“To sit here and say that that 98% is good enough, I reject that idea. It’s not good enough. This is health care we’re talking about here and people’s lives are at risk,” Hall said.

“’61,000 people may lose health care.’ My response is no, 61,000 people who currently aren’t working can move back to the workforce and keep the health care they have,” Koehler said.

Ohio did get Medicaid work requirements approved by the Trump Administration back in 2019, but those were ultimately put on hold and rescinded by the Biden Administration before going into effect, and in part as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.