Hayden Dublois is data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Serious problems require serious—and honest—conversations.
That’s why it was so disappointing to see the over-the-top rhetoric being leveraged against U.S. Rep. Mike Carey, R-Columbus, and other Ohio Republicans for supporting the reconciliation bill.
Being ideologically opposed to President Trump, no matter the consequences to Ohio families, isn’t helpful for anyone.
Carey voted for the One, Big, Beautiful Bill because he, like many of his colleagues, can read the writing on the wall. Welfare reform is the only way to protect the truly needy, and letting the 2017 tax cuts expire would devastate hardworking Ohioans.
Here’s the writing on the wall
Reforming Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is long overdue and an unavoidable necessity.
Far from “gutting” these programs, the bill includes commonsense reforms, specifically modest work requirements, that will help get the programs back on track and refocused on helping the most vulnerable in our communities.
In reality, Medicaid spending will actually continue to grow over the next decade. But instead of being spent on illegal aliens, fraud, and able-bodied adults who can work but refuse to, these resources will be preserved for the truly needy.
Since Ohio expanded Medicaid to able-bodied adults, the program has been on a collision course with disaster, facing hospital closures, skyrocketing enrollment, and a state budget pushed to the brink.
The welfare trap must go
Medicaid is devouring Ohio’s state budget.
More than half of Ohio’s general revenue funds go to Medicaid. What makes this even more significant is that Ohio has one of the worst improper payment rates in the country. Just before COVID-19, a projected 44.3 percent of the state’s Medicaid dollars went to people who weren’t eligible to receive them—that’s 44 cents of every single dollar, and nearly double the national average.
Despite the spending and despite the rapid expansion of the program over the past decade, there is little evidence that it has improved health outcomes, including with drug addiction and infant mortality.
It was never intended to be a welfare trap for able-bodied adults in the prime of their lives. Sixty-two percent of able-bodied adults on Medicaid do not work at all, despite millions of open jobs in this country, including nearly 300,000 in Ohio.
But that’s exactly what it’s become, and the truly needy are the ones suffering the most from this. Nationwide, there are roughly 700,000 Americans with disabilities who need care but are languishing on Medicaid waiting lists. They’re stuck in no small part because the status quo in Medicaid prioritizes able-bodied adults over the truly needy. Since Medicaid expansion began, tens of thousands have died waiting for care.
By reserving welfare for American citizens and also requiring able-bodied adults to work, train, or volunteer part time as a condition of being on Medicaid, the One, Big, Beautiful Bill refocuses Medicaid on those truly needy individuals while giving those who can work a gentle nudge to reenter the workforce and saves taxpayer money in the process.
In states that have implemented work requirements for welfare, we found people saw growing incomes and found work in more than 1,000 different industries.
And in addition to protecting the truly needy, the bill prevents an enormous tax hike and increases take-home pay for Ohio families.
The One, Big, Beautiful Bill isn’t just for the rich
The left’s claim that billionaires were the ones who benefited from the 2017 tax cuts is out of touch with reality.
In the two years after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was implemented, record numbers of women, minorities, and people with disabilities entered the workforce.
The poverty rate and the unemployment rate dropped to the lowest levels in 50 years. The increase in wages between 2018-2019 was the fastest growth in real wages our country had seen in decades.
The solution isn’t to let the tax cuts expire. The hike wouldn’t be “modest” by any means. It would be devastating. Eighty percent of Americans would see a spike in their taxes, and small businesses would lose several important tax benefits.
The president’s bill prevents this massive tax hike and adds new tax relief for countless Americans, providing an enormous boon to hardworking families struggling to make ends meet.
Health care is expensive. But the solution to this struggle isn’t more spending, tax hikes, and growing welfare—that’s a recipe for more of the despair we’ve seen over the past four years.
The solution is to do whatever we can to protect the most vulnerable and encourage those who can work to get off the sidelines, all while cracking down on fraud, and abuse.
With the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, Ohio’s Republican delegation has found a way to do just that.
Hayden Dublois is data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Medicaid a trap for able-bodied adults who should be working. Carey voted right. | Opinion
Reporting by Hayden Dublois / The Columbus Dispatch
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