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.
Federal Judge Pauses Case on Mifepristone Access Until After Midterm Elections
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
A federal judge in Texas recently paused a lawsuit seeking to revoke nationwide approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, saying the case won’t be heard until at least Tuesday, December 1, and granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) request for a stay to continue its safety review of the drug.
The Republican attorneys general of Florida and Texas filed a lawsuit against the FDA December 2025 seeking to permanently revoke the agency’s initial approval of mifepristone from 2000, along with subsequent decisions over the years that eased access for patients. Florida and Texas had agreed to the FDA’s request for a stay.
If a judge were to rule in favor of Florida and Texas, the medication would become unavailable in all states, regardless of abortion laws.
In the same ruling, U.S. Chief District Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, denied a motion to dismiss the case from distributor Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, one of the drug’s main manufacturers. The company’s attorneys intervened as defendants in April. Judge O’Connor’s ruling will delay any action in the case until after the midterm elections.
“We expect the FDA’s review of mifepristone to not contradict the decision they made in 2023 that reaffirmed our product is safe and effective,” GenBioPro CEO Evan Masingill said in a statement recently. “GenBioPro will continue to use all legal and regulatory tools available to ensure Americans’ access to reproductive care.”
Read the full article in Ohio Capital Journal.
Ohio’s Already Seen the Biggest ACA Drop. Premiums are about to Go Up by Another 15%
Source: Ohio Capital Journal
Ohio has seen the biggest enrollment drop of any state since congressional Republicans allowed subsidies for insurance in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces to expire, nearly by a third of the half-million Ohioans who bought insurance there dropped it.
Now, faced with a smaller, sicker clientele, the 11 insurers remaining in Ohio’s marketplace are proposing to increase premiums on average by 14.7% for 2027, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.
Natasha Murphy, the group’s director for health policy, said the new expense will only add to the burden besetting hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who are already struggling to get by.
“It’s just exacerbating the affordability crisis that millions of Americans are finding themselves in — especially as it relates to their monthly premiums,” Murphy told the Capital Journal.
Last summer, congressional Republicans renewed President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. That was a provision in President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that provided $1 trillion in cuts for the richest 1% of Americans over 10 years while cutting more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and federal food assistance over the same period.
And while they renewed the tax cuts, congressional Republicans last year declined to renew pandemic-era subsidies for insurance purchased on the ACA exchanges. That caused premiums to more than double for nearly 497,000 Ohioans who bought their health insurance there.
Read the full article in Ohio Capital Journal.
Ohioans Across Political Spectrum Support Policies to Slow Healthcare Cost Growth
Source: Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Data included in a keynote presentation at the Health Policy Institute of Ohio’s (HPIO) 2026 Health Policy Summit shows that Ohioans across the political spectrum are overwhelmingly in favor of government action to lower healthcare costs.
The Altarum Institute Consumer Healthcare Experience State Survey data was included in the opening keynote remarks from Alex Spratt, the Vice President of Healthcare at Arnold Ventures, whose presentation was titled “Catalyzing Policy Progress Through Data and Evidence.”
The new polling data comes as many Ohioans continue to struggle with healthcare costs, with 68% of Ohioans reporting that they have experienced a healthcare affordability burden and 75% saying that they are worried about the cost of healthcare in the future.
The burden of higher healthcare costs was one of the key findings in HPIO’s 2026 Health Value Dashboard, which found that, “Higher healthcare costs can make it harder for people to access care and for employers to offer affordable health insurance. Rising costs also strain health systems, leading to, for example, reduced services or closed hospitals in rural areas.”
Read the full article on HPIO’s website.
Trump Administration Announces $3.15 Million to Expand Pharmacy Connectivity Throughout Rural Ohio Communities
Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
The Trump Administration announced recently that a $3.15 million investment is being delivered to strengthen pharmacy connectivity and improve care across rural communities in Ohio through the federal Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP). The investments will connect independent and retail pharmacies, federally qualified health centers, and outpatient hospital pharmacies across Ohio’s 73 rural counties to improve rural healthcare providers’ integrated access to critical prescription drug information.
The funding will support efforts to improve integrated access for rural healthcare clinicians to help address low rates of prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) integration within electronic health records and pharmacy dispensing systems. This program will help Ohio prescribers and pharmacists avoid potentially life-threatening drug interactions and combat the occurrence of individuals fraudulently obtaining controlled substances from multiple healthcare clinicians. These investments build on the Administration’s $10 million in funding previously announced focused on workforce development to recruit, train, and retain healthcare workers across Ohio.
“President Trump understands that every American deserves high-quality healthcare, no matter where they live,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “We are putting resources directly into rural communities to strengthen the health workforce, modernize infrastructure, expand access, and bring care closer to home. We are giving states the flexibility to build solutions around the people they serve, while demanding accountability for results. That is how we strengthen rural health, improve the lives of patients and families, and Make America Healthy Again.”
Read the full article on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website.