State Ohio Health Insurance

Group to resist cuts in Medicaid for disabled

AKRON, Ohio — Jessica Norwood hasn't let disabilities take away her ability to live a full, productive life.

Norwood, 28, of Stow, Ohio, has severe breathing problems, visual-perception processing issues and mild hearing loss in one ear as a result of being born four months premature.

She relies on a personal aide whose help she receives through the state-run Medicaid program to drive her places, tend to her home and help her complete her studies at Kent State University.

Norwood also works full time as an office aide at two early-childhood-development centers affiliated with the Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board.

Without the help she gets from Medicaid, she said, "I wouldn't be able to live independently on my own."

Norwood is one of six Americans recently selected by the American Association of People with Disabilities and the United Cerebral Palsy group to serve on a new national committee dedicated to preserving Medicaid services.

The citizens collectively have been dubbed "America's Supercommittee."

Norwood and the others are sharing their stories nationwide as the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — also known as the "supercommittee" — drafts proposals on the federal budget. (Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is committee co-chair.)

The fear is that federal spending cuts could include reductions in Medicaid funding, said Lara Schwartz, vice president of external affairs for the nonprofit American Association of People with Disabilities.

Medicaid is a state-run program funded with state and federal money. Funding cuts would adversely affect the estimated 8 million disabled Americans who rely on Medicaid to cover medical care and provide other services that allow them to remain relatively independent, Schwartz said.

States across the country already have reduced Medicaid services as they face budget constraints.

"In the disability committee, there is a lot at stake," Schwartz said. "When you look at Medicaid, you're looking at services and tools that people use that literally, in terms of health care, can be life and death.

Ohio to decide 3 issues this fall | The Bellevue Gazette

) — A clash of polit­i­cal philoso­phies will play out at Ohio’s bal­lot box this fall in ques­tions con­cern­ing pub­lic employee unions and a fed­eral health-insurance mandate.

Labor unions and their Demo­c­ra­tic allies have launched a multi-million-dollar effort to repeal a bill law­mak­ers passed this spring lim­it­ing the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing abil­i­ties of gov­ern­ment work­ers around the state, a mea­sure backed by Repub­li­can Gov. John Kasich as a way to con­tain costs.

Tea party groups, joined by Repub­li­cans, are push­ing a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment that would pro­hibit gov­ern­ment from requir­ing Ohioans to buy health insur­ance, a back­lash against Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s fed­eral health care overhaul.

The two cam­paigns raise sweep­ing themes — of class equity, the roles of gov­ern­ment, labor unions and tax­pay­ers, and America’s par­ti­san divide.

It is an unusu­ally intense off-year elec­tion that also includes a third bal­lot ques­tion. Issue , after protests that packed the Ohio Statehouse.

The law bans strikes, scraps bind­ing arbi­tra­tion, and elim­i­nates the abil­ity of unions rep­re­sent­ing teach­ers, police, fire­fight­ers, state employ­ees and other pub­lic work­ers to bar­gain for sick pay and pen­sion ben­e­fits. Employ­ees would be required to con­tribute at least Peo­ple are rec­og­niz­ing that we can’t con­tinue down this path and we sim­ply can’t sus­tain it,” said cam­paign spokes­woman Con­nie Wehrkamp. “We’ve gone back to the tax­pay­ers and said do you want to sup­port this levy or that levy, and over­whelm­ingly they’ve said ‘no.’ Tax­pay­ers have hit the brake.”

The oppo­si­tion empha­sizes the role of pub­lic employ­ees — par­tic­u­larly fire­fight­ers — in pro­tect­ing com­mu­ni­ties, and touts their will­ing­ness in recent years to take salary and ben­e­fit con­ces­sions. State work­ers, for exam­ple, agreed to unpaid fur­lough days — an effec­tive pay cut — under the state’s last budget.

The state, its nature, development, and prospects

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