As Washington weighs deep cuts to Medicaid funding, Northeast Ohio organizations are concerned for children living in poverty and people with disabilities.
Proposed cuts to Medicaid would mean an estimated 727,000 Ohioans would lose health coverage, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.
Medicaid covers a wide range of services, including programs that support people with disabilities.
Rebecca Kimble works for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, and is disabled herself. She said the program pays for her transportation to work, and for a home health aid.
“I'm an independent woman, but I also have a person named James, and he takes me to and from grocery shopping and gives extra aid to me," she said.
Without federal funding, her support would fall on the county. That could mean raising local taxes, or making cuts elsewhere in the county budget.
Some Republican legislators say cuts will reform the system without eliminating critical services.
Another example of a service facing loss of support is treatment for substance use disorders.
Allyse Hawkins, vice president of behavioral health for Oriana House, a local nonprofit that serves people leaving incarceration, said many of her clients use the treatment to reduce their cravings for substances — a critical step in recovery and reintegration that is backed by evidence, she said.
Maintaining Medicaid funding for medication-assisted treatment also has shown to reduce recidivism, and ease the burden on other systems like foster care and emergency departments, Hawkins said.
"If we can care for them, or we can get them to a place where long-term recovery is achieved, we're also then going to have an impact on those other systems that cost the state money," she said.
