“Approximately one week after the executive budget was introduced for consideration by the House, the state announced an $800 million shortfall in revenue which set in motion across-the-board cuts in the House-passed version of the budget. The shortfall in revenue, Medicaid funding uncertainties at the federal level (potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act), and the number of unexperienced legislators in the House resulted in a very difficult budget environment.
Senate members have more knowledge and experience relative to understanding the ramifications of their decisions, so the OAFP is hopeful that it will be able to correct some of the House actions in the Senate. That said, an even larger revenue shortfall is now projected which the Senate will have to address in their version of the state budget.
In the executive budget, the family medicine line item (235-519) was flat-funded at $3,166,185 per year of the biennium. The House-passed budget cuts the family medicine line by 10% in the first year of the biennium and in the second year of the biennium, consolidates the family medicine line with the geriatric, primary care, Area Health Education Centers, and clinical teaching lines giving the chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education authority to distribute appropriated funding to those various lines. The OAFP is working with the Ohio Senate to restore the family medicine line back to the as-introduced funding level and to deconsolidate the lines in the second year of the biennium or at the very least to have input into any distribution formula created by the Ohio Department of Higher Education. To restore funding to the family medicine line, an amendment will be introduced to use unutilized money from the Ohio Physician Loan Repayment Program.
Relative to Medicaid expansion, the House-passed budget would require the State Controlling Board to authorize Medicaid spending every six months which will create a rocky and uncertain environment for Medicaid providers and recipients. The Senate may be receptive to making changes to stabilize that environment.
And, the House-passed version of the state budget eliminated funding of the Ohio Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC Ohio, not CPC Plus) program which OAFP and many other organizations are working to restore in the Senate.
Amendments were due into the Senate Finance Committee by May 31. The Senate plans to pass the state budget by June 21, 2017, which will give the House-Senate Conference Committee nine days to iron out the differences in the House and Senate versions of the budget.”