Speaker Jason Stephens@jasoncstephens
For the last 1.5 years, the Ohio House Medicaid Committee has been working to protect the taxpayer while serving our most vulnerable citizens. As a member of this committee, I can attest that especially over the past few weeks, both sides of the aisle have been working together to honestly find policies to eliminate fraud, waste, & abuse.
Last week, Speaker Huffman added three members of leadership to the Medicaid Committee. These three have taken over the process from the chair, and yesterday they presented a 177-page substitute bill that had been released just a few hours before committee began. This was an ambush! Turns out, the details of this sub bill has provisions in it that totally blow up Medicaid in Ohio and will have the exact opposite effect of what we have been working towards.
Last General Assembly we had a rule that required all amendments and sub bills to be available by midnight the day before adopted (The Cinderella Rule). This rule gave some time for amendments to be read; however, this rule was eliminated in this GA. The result has been that time and time again, members have been forced to take votes before seeing the bill, and then only later getting the details. Yesterday, leadership hid the ball again, and in doing so, left the original members of the committee who weren’t part of crafting the sub bill holding the bag.
This is the latest example of the style of leadership the Ohio House is under.—do what we say or else. Believe me, I know firsthand!
And most unfortunately, this trick yesterday probably wasted an opportunity to truly protect the taxpayer. We were on a path to make major and positive reforms to Medicaid in Ohio to weed out Fraud, Waste, and Abuse; however, now with this sub bill and the way it was handled, how can we trust what we are being told by leadership?
Simply put, we cannot.
Oh, and to be clear, I’m a “No” on this SubBill.
