The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) advocacy team monitors healthcare related legislation, rule changes, and legislative updates for Ohio’s family physicians.
To access the OAFP Bill Tracker, visit the OAFP Public Policy webpage and click on the Bill Tracker icon.
Read on for this week’s updates and contact Advocacy Coordinator Kaela Springhetti with questions or for ways to get involved.
Local Governments See Shrinking Pool of Federal Funds for Lead Cleanup
Source: Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Tighter regulations and an influx of federal money in recent years have helped communities across the United States initiate efforts to clean up lead contamination in soil, drinking water, and older homes. But Congress and the Trump Administration have partially rolled back those rules and resources, potentially making it more challenging for cash-strapped cities and towns to undertake sweeping lead remediation programs (Source: Federal Aid for Lead Cleanup Is Receding. That’s a Problem for Cash-Strapped Cities, Kaiser Health News, March 3).
No level of lead exposure is safe, according to federal environmental officials, but undertaking a comprehensive cleanup can be financially prohibitive.
Congress allocated $15 billion over five years to lead pipe replacement under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a Biden-era measure set to expire at the end of this year. In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency also tightened the standards for lead-contaminated soil for the first time in 30 years and mandated that water systems replace all lead service lines by late 2037.
But a spending package passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in January redirected $125 million of that lead remediation money to wildfire prevention. And since October, the Environmental Protection Agency has partially rolled back protections against soil contamination, raising the federal hazard level in urban areas and the threshold for removing contaminated soil.
State Medicaid Budgets Will Decline by $665 Billion Under New Federal Law, Report Finds
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
State Medicaid budgets will be reduced by a total of $665 billion over the next decade, after President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts federal investment in the health insurance program, according to a new analysis.
Researchers from RAND Health, a policy and research nonprofit, analyzed state and federal data to estimate how much the loss of federal money will affect state Medicaid budgets, publishing their findings late last month. Medicaid is the public health insurance program for people with low incomes, jointly funded by state and federal money.
Overall, the net impact on state budgets, apart from their Medicaid programs, will be a reduction of $86 billion, according to the report. That number is lower than the total reduction in Medicaid budgets because while some states will have to spend more money from their general funds to cover Medicaid losses, others will have to spend less.
New federal rules such as work requirements for some Medicaid enrollees are designed to reduce the number of people on Medicaid, which means states that cover those people would no longer have to pay their share of those medical bills, saving them money. But many states use financial strategies, such as “provider taxes,” to qualify for extra federal Medicaid money. The new law limits their ability to do that, and that will force them to dip into their general funds to cover the loss of revenue.
“The effects of the law on Medicaid budgets and enrollment are substantial, but will vary widely across states, and in some cases may be at least partially offset by savings to the state general fund,” said Preethi Rao, a senior economist at RAND and lead author of the study, in a statement.
Read the full article in The Ohio Capital Journal.
Abortion Rights Advocates Say New 24-Hour Waiting Period Bill Conflicts with Ohio Constitution
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
Opponents of Ohio legislation that seeks to reimpose a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion said the bill not only conflicts with the constitution, but discriminates against reproductive healthcare.
The Ohio House Health Committee met to hear testimony against Ohio House Bill (HB) 347, a bill that only allows an abortion if a physician meets with the pregnant person at least 24 hours before the abortion “to provide specified information and document the woman’s informed consent,” with the exception of a medical emergency.
The bill creates civil liability penalties against a physician who doesn’t follow HB 347, and also allows the State Medical Board of Ohio – on which the head of an anti-abortion lobby group sits – to adopt rules “specifying adverse physical or psychological conditions arising from abortion that a physician must disclose as possible complications when meeting with the pregnant (person) as part of the informed consent process,” according to a bill analysis by the Legislative Service Commission.
But abortion rights advocates who spoke at the committee hearing said a state-mandated delay in care would only create more problems, health and otherwise, for pregnant individuals.
A 24-hour waiting period was also already in state law, before a lawsuit was filed, and a Franklin County Common Pleas Judge blocked enforcement of it as the lawsuit continues. A final decision in the case won’t come until at least summer of this year, as deadlines in the case already extend into April.
Anastasia Martinez, of the Ohio Women’s Alliance Action Fund, said waiting to have her procedure under the previous law only served to increase her stress, not change her mind.
“The 24-hour waiting period…did absolutely nothing to my decision,” Martinez said. “It just increased my anxiety, it forced me to take not only medical leave off of work, but mental health days off of work as well.”
Read the full article in The Ohio Capital Journal.