Source: The Center for Community Solutions
The Center for Community Solutions estimates that county governments will need to provide new case management services to more than 200,000 Medicaid enrollees, at a cost of about $380 million over a five-year period, as a result of proposed eligibility requirements.
The proposed requirements would mandate Medicaid recipients work or participate in approved community engagement activities in order to receive Medicaid benefits. To comply with the work requirement, Medicaid expansion enrollees would need to demonstrate they work at least 20 hours a week or are engaged in other allowable activities, including job search, education and training, or unpaid work in certain cases. New enrollees must meet the requirement when they enroll, and current enrollees must meet the requirement during their annual eligibility renewal. Failure to meet the requirement results in termination of Medicaid benefits. Limited exceptions may be granted, for example for a family emergency or illness.
Cuyahoga County will incur the largest cost in the state, more than $10.8 million if the proposal goes into effect. Franklin and Hamilton counties will follow with estimated costs of nearly $8 million and more than $6 million respectively.
The Center for Community Solutions has called the proposed changes in eligibility requirements “a complex, unfunded, legally questionable, mandate that fails to meet the essential purpose of Medicaid to provide medical assistance.” The proposal will increase the administrative costs of individual county governments by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians opposes the Medicaid work requirements. On March 1, the OAFP submitted comments opposing Ohio Medicaid’s waiver request to implement work requirements for Medicaid expansion enrollees.
“As primary care physicians serving on the front lines of patient care in Ohio, we know firsthand that approval of Ohio’s waiver application would be a devastating blow to progress made in providing health care coverage to Ohio’s Medicaid and other low-income populations, said OAFP President Don Mack, MD. “This waiver application, as written, threatens coverage of an estimated 36,000 adult Ohioans who now have coverage – a huge step backward in achieving the American Academy of Family Physicians’ long-standing goal of achieving health care coverage for all.”