State Expansions: Ohio
In September 2007, Governor Strickland appointed a team to craft recommendations for comprehensive state health reform. The State Coverage Initiative (SCI) team has members representing business, labor, state lawmakers, insurance regulators, public health administrators, and consumers. The governor tasked the SCI team with proposing reforms that would achieve the goals of: (1) reducing the number of uninsured Ohioans by 500,000 by 2011; and (2) increasing the number of small businesses that are able to offer insurance to their workers.
The SCI team worked collaboratively to generate the recommendations in Covering Ohio's Uninsured: The SCI Team's Final Report to Governor Ted Strickland, which include the following:
- Require employers to offer pre-tax Section 125 health plans to employees.
- Create a reinsurance program to fund coverage for uninsured small business employees and individuals.
- Allow young adults to remain on their family's health plan until age 29.
- Provide subsidies to workers to allow them to buy employer coverage.
- Expand Medicaid for parents with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($35,200 for a family of 3 in 2003). If crowd-out is a concern, they will limit the expansion to parents with incomes up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($26,400 for a family of 3 in 2008).
- Improve enrollment and outreach strategies to get more currently eligible, low-income children, parents, and seniors in the Medicaid and SCHIP programs.
- Provide coverage to uninsured, non-parent adults with income below the federal poverty level ($10,400 for an individual in 2008) through Medicaid managed care organizations.
- Reform the private health insurance system to increase efficiency and access by requiring guaranteed issue, reducing premium variation based on health status and age, and limiting pre-existing condition coverage exclusions.
- Establish a connector to serve as a marketplace for uninsured people to acquire appropriate private or subsidized coverage.
- Require that all individuals have health insurance if they are able to afford it.
Governor Strickland's proposed budget for 2010-2011 includes a number of these provisions, including: a requirement that employers must offer Section 125 plans; availability of family health plan coverage for young adults up to age 29; a limit on premiums of 150 percent of base rates for individual coverage in the Open Enrollment Program; and a requirement that insurers must accept a number of applicants who would not typically pass medical underwriting (up to 4.5 percent of each insurer's individual market business). It is now up to the legislature to implement these provisions for coverage expansion and consumer protection.
Ohio Expansion Resources
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