Excerpt from Columbus Dispatch: (click for entire article)
Poor uninsured Ohioans will have to wait to find out whether they will get health coverage in 2014 now that states no longer are required to expand their tax-funded Medicaid programs.
State officials say they aren’t sure that Ohio can afford expansion, but a decision won’t be made until next year in negotiations for the next two-year state budget.
In last week’s health-care ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld much of the law, including a mandate that most Americans have coverage by 2014 or face a penalty. But a majority of the justices tossed out a requirement that states expand their Medicaid programs to help cover millions of poor uninsured people, throwing into question how they will gain insurance.
Ohio, like several other states, is reluctant to go ahead with the expansion, despite the federal government’s pledge to pick up all the added expense for the first three years and 90 percent of costs after that.
Greg Moody, director of Gov. John Kasich’s office of health transformation, said Ohio first must determine how to cover additional Medicaid costs the state will incur even without expanding its program. State officials call it the “woodwork” or “welcome mat” effect that will prompt thousands of Ohioans who already are eligible but are not enrolled in Medicaid to sign up when the mandate kicks in.
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