Ohio opponents of Medicaid expansion file lawsuit

Oct 24 2013

A group of six Ohio lawmakers, along with two anti-abortion groups, brought suit Tuesday, challenging a legislative board's move to approve that state's expansion of Medicaid under the health law. Other media outlets look at the estimated 5 million Americans who will go without insurance because their states are not expanding the federal-state program for the poor. 

The Associated Press: Ohio Opponents Of Medicaid Expansion File Lawsuit
Two anti-abortion groups and six Republican lawmakers in Ohio sued the state Tuesday over a move by a legislative board to fund an expansion of the Medicaid health program. Gov. John Kasich's administration brought the funding request to the state's Controlling Board, bypassing the full Legislature (Sanner, 10/22).

Bloomberg: Ohio Medicaid Expansion Challenged In Lawsuit
Ohio Governor John Kasich's plan to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, approved yesterday by a state legislative panel, was challenged in a lawsuit brought by a group of Ohio lawmakers. Six Republican state representatives, joined by anti-abortion organizations based in Cleveland and Cincinnati, filed the complaint challenging the panel's action today at the state's Supreme Court in Columbus (Harris, 10/22).

NPR: States' Refusal To Expand Medicaid May Leave Millions Uninsured
President Obama Tuesday appointed one of his top management gurus, Jeffrey Zeints, to head the team working to fix what ails Healthcare.gov, the troubled website that's supposed to allow residents of 36 states enroll in coverage under the Affordable Care Act. But even if the team gets the website working as it should, millions of Americans may still log on to discover that they aren't eligible for any health coverage at all. And that won't be due to any technical glitch. It's because their state has decided not to expand its Medicaid program (Rovner, 10/23).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: In Some States, Most Early Marketplace Enrollees Qualify For Medicaid
Many of the uninsured are poor, and applicants don't have to pay anything to sign up for Medicaid. Shoppers applying for private health coverage through the marketplace have to pay their first monthly premium before they are fully enrolled. Their first payment must be made by Dec. 15 for coverage to take effect Jan. 1. Most are expected to be eligible for some tax credits, up front, to help pay the monthly premiums (Galewitz, 10/22).

St. Louis Beacon: Medicaid Coverage Gap Will Affect More Than 5 Million Americans, Including 193,000 In Missouri
By Missouri's refusal to expand its Medicaid program, more than 193,000 adults in the state will find themselves stuck in a coverage gap, come Jan. 1. These are uninsured adults who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but too little to be eligible for the government subsidies that discount the price of private health insurance (Joiner, 10/22).