COLUMBUS, Ohio – Those who want to pressure Ohio lawmakers into an expansion of Medicaid struck down by Republicans in the summer two big steps toward success this month.
Secretary of State Jon Husted announced on Friday that the Ohio Ballot Board certified the proposed initiated statute known as “The Access to Healthcare Act” as containing a single proposed law, allowing supporters to go ahead with a petition drive.
The board met after Attorney General Mike DeWine certified the issue as “a fair and truthful statement of the proposed law” on Sept. 13.
Healthy Ohioans Work is the group behind the initiative, which demands lawmakers take up Gov. John Kasich’s recommendation to make an estimate 275,000 additional Ohioans eligible for the federally-funded health care program for the poor. Kasich included the measure in his latest budget proposal, but it was removed by majority Republicans under pressure from tea party groups.
Kasich believed the expansion, which would cost an estimated $13 billion by the end of this decade, was a good idea because it would be funded with money from the federal government he argued would to expansion programs in other states.
The expansion funding was included in the Patient and Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law known as “Obamacare.” The program is anathema to GOP conservatives who threatened incumbents with primary challenges if they went along with it.
Supporters of the initiative now have to collect more than 115,000 signatures – a number equal to 3 percent of the total vote cast for governor in 2010 — to bring the issue before the General Assembly for consideration. The valid signatures must be filed with Husted’s office no less than 10 days prior to the start of any legislative session in a calendar year in order to get the issue on that year’s General Election ballot.
The General Assembly has four months to act and, if it doesn’t pass it in its original form or in an amended form, the supporters will have to collect the same number of signatures to place the issue on the ballot.