The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) advocacy team monitors healthcare related legislation throughout the legislative process.
Read on for this week’s updates and contact Workforce and Advocacy Manager Caitlin Laudeman with questions or ways to get involved.
Ohio House Passes State Budget Bill
Source: OhioHealth Government Relations Newsletter
- Medicaid rates – includes a 5% Medicaid rate increase for physicians that will likely be implemented in January 2024
- Medicaid obesity coverage – requires the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) to cover obesity services, including prevention and wellness, nutrition services, behavioral therapy, prescription drugs, and bariatric surgery
- Surgical smoke – requires ambulatory surgical facilities and hospitals to adopt policies that prevent exposure to surgical smoke during planned surgical procedures; and requires a surgical smoke evacuation system.
While the 3% funding increase for Family Practice Appropriation was not reinstated in the house passed budget, The OAFP is coordinating another Speak Out opportunity to encourage reinstating the 3% increase in the Senate budget. Keep an eye on your inbox for access to this upcoming message.
Governor DeWine Pushes for More Mental Health Funding
Source: NEA Consulting Weekly Ohio Update
Increased funding for mental health is critical for moral and economic reasons, Gov. Mike DeWine said last Wednesday.
“It’s very important for the individual. It’s important for the individual’s family. It’s also important, frankly, for the whole state,” Gov. DeWine said during NAMI Ohio’s annual meeting at the Statehouse.
“We’re creating jobs faster than we have people to fill them. Our biggest challenge is to make sure that we have people who can fill these jobs, so they can live up to their potential,” Gov. DeWine said. “When we help people with a mental health problem, mental illness, we’re helping them, their family, and we’re also frankly helping ourselves. We’re helping everybody in the state of Ohio.”
Gov. DeWine said the executive budget proposal included provisions intended to provide more mental health funding to schools, incentivize more individuals to go into the mental healthcare workforce, and increase resources to local communities.
Constitutional Amendment Stalled
Source: OhioHealth Government Relations Newsletter
The effort led by Republican state legislations to raise the threshold for passing future state constitutional amendments is temporarily stalled. Currently, a simple majority of voters is enough to pass ballot initiatives that would amend Ohio’s Constitution. The proposal now under consideration in the state legislature would increase that simple majority threshold to 60% of the total vote. Republican legislators are aiming to hold an August special election to ask Ohio voters to raise the threshold.
The current effort is stalled in the legislature largely because a coalition of more than 200 labor, faith, voting rights, civil rights, and community groups have opposed it. The four living former Ohio governors, as well as five former state attorneys general, also oppose the effort.
- The Republican-led General Assembly just voted last year to do away with August special elections
- Reinstating a special election in August would cost the state of Ohio approximately $20 million
- The belief that what’s driving this effort to significantly raise the threshold for amending the Constitution is a concern that Ohioans will in the future vote to enshrine abortion rights in the Constitution.
Despite Recent Gains, Ohio Still Ranks Low Among States for Health Outcomes
Source: NEA Consulting Weekly Ohio Update
Ohio continued to rank among the worst states for health outcomes in the Health Policy Institute’s (HPIO) recently released 2023 Health Value Dashboard, despite making some modest gains. The fifth edition found Ohio ranked 44th on health value — a combination of population health outcomes and health care spending metrics — compared to other states and Washington, D.C. While the report details significant ways Ohio is falling short in health outcomes, particularly around issues of equity, it also lays out areas of strength and approaches to improve population health.
“This edition of the Dashboard is very much a glass half full, half empty kind of moment,” Amy Bush Stevens, vice president of research and evaluation for HPIO, said recently during a conference hosted by the organization. While the report still finds Ohioans continue to live less healthy lives and spend more on healthcare than residents in other states, this year’s ranking was also the state’s best to date. In this year’s report, Ohio ranks 44 out of 50 states and Washington, D.C., on health value. Ohio hovered around spot 46 or 47 in the last four editions of the report — the most recent of which was released in 2021.
- Strengthen Ohio’s workforce
- Foster mental well-being
- Improve healthcare effectiveness.