Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has cast a skeptical eye on regulations for a group the state refers to as “job creators.” But he and Attorney General Dave Yost are pushing for regulations that will make it more difficult for the poor — including those with jobs — to get health care.

DeWine on Thursday announced that he was calling on Yost to sue to overturn President Joe Biden’s decision to invalidate Medicaid work requirements. Former President Donald Trump approved the Ohio work requirement in 2019.

In the Buckeye State, Medicaid covers 25% of the population, so the requirement would affect many.

“Removing a provision that says a healthy, able-bodied individual should be working, looking for work, participating in job training, or participating in a recovery program in order to receive free taxpayer-funded health care is contrary to Ohioans’ values,” DeWine said in a statement that was issued under his and Yost’s names. 

It adds, “Eliminating reasonable requirements discourages people from becoming self-sufficient and only reinforces government dependency. Ohio’s program would offer assistance when Ohioans need it, while providing opportunities for future success.”

The statement didn’t provide any evidence to support those assertions. Meanwhile, there appears to be considerable evidence to the contrary.

For starters, at least before the pandemic, most Medicaid recipients who could work did. 

The non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation in February reported that in 2019, 63% of non-elderly, non-permanently disabled, adult Medicaid recipients in the United States worked full or part-time. Another 29% were caregivers, in school or ill. That means just 7% who were on Medicaid couldn’t find work or faced a similar challenge.

The offices of DeWine and Yost didn’t immediately respond when asked why, in light of those statistics, Ohio’s Medicaid work requirement is necessary. 

In addition, the state’s own numbers appear to belie the governor’s assertion. The Ohio Poverty Law Center pointed out that the Ohio Department of Medicaid’s assessment of the expansion population between 2016 and 2018 expansion found that:

• 94% of participants “were either employed, in school, taking care of family members, participating in an alcohol and drug treatment program, or dealing with intensive physical health or mental health illness (many had comorbid conditions).”
• 84% of employed enrollees reported that Medicaid made it easier to keep working and 75% of unemployed enrollees said the program made it easier to look for work.
• Employment among the expansion population rose by 6.4 percentage points over the two years.
• Primary-care visits for the group went up between 2014 and 2017, while emergency room visits went down.

Kaiser also reports that real-world experience with work requirements shows that it pushes large numbers out of the government health program for the poor. 

In a separate analysis of Arkansas’s work requirement, Kaiser said that in 2018 more than 18,000 — or 25% of those subject to the requirement — saw their benefits cancelled for non-compliance. Of those, just 11% were reinstated the following year.

Focus groups indicated that enrollees were often confused by or unaware of the requirements, had issues creating online accounts or didn’t receive mail related to them because of a lack of stable housing — all problems more likely to beset the poor.

Kaiser also noted that squeezing recipients out of Medicaid is likely to force medical providers to give care without compensation and it’s more likely to make people sicker, rendering many unable to work.

With economic disruption from the coronavirus pandemic continuing — and with DeWine ending federal unemployment supplements and an eviction moratorium expiring — critics say the move will for no reason punish vulnerable Ohioans.

Be that as it may, state leaders who were quick to give a corrupt, $1.3 billion bailout to wealthy energy companies insisted that work requirements are needed to help the poor out of poverty.

“The Biden Administration’s decision to withdraw Ohio’s Medicaid work requirement fails to prepare people for a productive life, trapping recipients in a never-ending cycle of dependency and poverty,” tweeted Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. “The idea that Americans can receive free health care at the expense of other hard-working Americans and cannot be asked to complete job training, education or work 20 hours per week undermines the American ethic.”

Husted didn’t respond immediately when asked to provide data showing that the absence of Medicaid work requirements traps people in poverty. 

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This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.