Panel warns budget 'kill switch' could end Ohio Medicaid expansion for about 770,000 people

A panel of health-care leaders, providers and advocates told a Columbus Metropolitan Club forum that a provision in Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed state budget would automatically end Ohio’s 2014 Medicaid expansion if the federal Medicaid matching rate drops — a change panelists said could strip coverage from about 770,000 Ohioans and sharply reduce behavioral-health services across the state.

“If that number drops, it automatically eliminates Ohio’s expansion. It’s that simple,” said Greg Moody, director of professional development at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University, describing the provision commonly called a “kill switch.”

The kill switch would terminate expansion if the federal matching rate for the expansion population falls even slightly from its current level — currently discussed in testimony as about a 90% federal share and 10% state share — without leaving discretion to the state to keep the program, panelists said. Amy Bush Stevens, a consultant to the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, said the loss of expansion coverage would shift many people to uninsured status or to plans they could not afford.

“The biggest group would become uninsured,” Stevens said, and added that some might wind up on employer…