New York Times quietly castigates Kasich on Medicaid work requirements

Without once mentioning the current governor of Ohio, the Wednesday New York Times' editorial "Medicaid’s Nickel-and-Dime Routine" castigates Kasich in ways Ohio Democrats have failed, feared or forgotten to do.

It's a wonder Kasich isn't on the Democratic ticket for governor this year, given the adulation Ohio Democrats have lathered on the 69th governor since he accepted expanded Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, in an administrative end run. The 44th president, Barack Obama, signed the ACA into law in 2010, lighting the fuse Tea Party Republicans wanted so bad to blow up the best effort yet for America to move an inch closer to the national policies all other advanced nations have found work much better.

Proponents of work requirements, like Ohio's hard-right state CEO Kasich who ran for re-election in 2014 on the promise of lifting everyone up no matter their circumstances, "say that the goal is not to punish the poor, but to lift them out of poverty by nudging them into the work force," the Times editorial argues. "But decades of experience with similar social experiments tell us that it will not play out that way," it says, adding, "The welfare-to-work strategies of the 1980s and 1990s succeeded at getting people off government rosters — but without alleviating their poverty."

Congressman Kasich, who served a reliably Republican district near Columbus for 18 years in Congress, boasts about his role in shaping the welfare-to-work bill then President Bill Clinton signed into law in the wake of the Gingrich revolution that brought eager GOP ideologues like Kasich to the forefront of backroom DC dealing.

What The Urban Institute found in Arkansas is what will be found in Ohio if Kasich's Medicaid waiver request to federal Medicaid officials to add work requirements to stay eligible for expanded Medicaid is granted. What those findings showed, as the Times reported, is that "nearly 80 percent of Medicaid enrollees who would be subject to the new work requirements face limitations that include significant health problems, a seriously ill family member, no vehicle or a lack of education. These barriers would make it difficult to impossible for many of them to meet the new rule’s monthly reporting requirements, even if they managed to secure the required 80 hours of work each month."

Ohio Democrats who have been shut out of statewide politics for decades, with the exception of a stint in 2006, are desperate for a win this year, but the party and its candidates seem incapable of raining down any criticism on Kasich, who has basked in the warmth of praise heaped on him for his one-trick pony acceptance of expanded Medicaid. Democrat insiders have said they won't Kasich on by name because he's still popular and because he's not on the ballot. While his name won't be on the ballot, his last eight years and all its misguided or misbegotten policies and programs are. So why do Ohio Democrats tread lightly on Kasich is a question worth an answer, given the close political ties Kasich has to all the other GOP candidates this year that ODP has gone after in its new website "The Statehouse Gang."

A Medicaid waiver was submitted by the Kasich administration in early May detailing Ohio's plan for imposing a work and community engagement requirement lawmakers passed last summer, the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote. The waiver requires Medicaid expansion enrollees to work unless they're over age 55, a student, seeking substance abuse treatment or have serious physical or mental health issues. State officials downplayed the number who will be harmed by the waiver if it's granted, but as is the case in Arkansas and other states where new work requirements have been approved, those numbers underestimate the true population of people who will have more than just not enough money to worry about.

One progressive advocacy group, Policy Matters Ohio, wants Kasich to scrap his waiver request. Policy Matters Ohio's Executive Director sent a letter to Ohio Department of Medicaid Director Barbara Sears, asking the Kasich administration to reconsider submitting the proposal to the Trump Administration.

That letter, from Amy Hanauer, argued the proposal "could cause many people to lose access to medical care" because the "proposal is unnecessary, because the vast majority of Medicaid patients are working, disabled or caring for someone who is disabled." The proposed requirement, Hanauer said, "is ill-suited to the uncertain schedules and other realities of the low-wage work place. The state fails to fund necessary components of the program. Finally, the proposed program may violate labor laws.”

Prior to the work waiver request, recall that Kasich quietly pushed for a federal waiver so Ohio can bill Medicaid recipients poor enough to qualify for it a monthly premium. It’s basic Kasich to dispense a dose of bitter medicine to wean the takers off so-called “dependency” on government support.

When Ohio’s senior senator in Washington, Sherrod Brown, spoke on the Senate floor to rail against passing the GOP-designed repeal of the ACA, he made reference to Kasich three times in one short talk.

“I agree with Governor Kasich: We must put politics aside and work together to come up with bipartisan solutions to bring down costs and make healthcare work better for everyone,” Brown said, previously telling reporters he salutes Kasich for his stance on Medicaid.

When a party and its candidates are running to reverse course on eight years of policies championed and pushed by Kasich, but are fearful or have forgotten how to tie him directly to his own record, it may offer a glimpse into why Kasich is riding high on national TV shows, where he opines with the craft only a skilled politico has accumulated after decades of playing catch me if you can to media and reporters who can't catch him.