Ohio State Rep Jennifer Gross - Ohio Medicaid

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Five the fifty five carc detalk station.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Bottom of the hour, we'll hear from Donovan and Neil
from Americans for Prosperity. I got that event coming up
at the farm Restored Liberty dot Us is going to
be there as well. George Brenneman and Americans for Prosperity
will be paying for your meal at the farm. So
we'll get the details from Donovan at the bottom of
the hour. Without further ado, Welcome back to the fifty
five Carscy Morning Show. High State Representative Jennifer Gross. Jennifer,

(00:45):
it's always a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for being
on the program this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you, Ryan, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
So the elected officials in Columbus, I always refer to
them as like hurting cats. It seems to me that Republicans,
you think Republicans would play nicer and cooperate more together,
but sadly, we don't see a whole lot of that.
It always just seems to be a mystery to me.
But moving away from that, and I don't want to
put opinions or conclusions into your head or mouth, but

(01:13):
there are the lawmakers are considering repealing the Medicaid expansion,
a Medicaid expansion, which I suppose occurred back in twenty fourteen,
and they're saying they need to do that. We don't
have the money here in the state of Ohio unless
the federal money that comes in in support of the
medicaid program covers ninety percent of those that were at

(01:36):
that enter the system under the expansion. Do I have
that accurate?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, that we want to get rid of it, maybe
not accurate. The fact that the federal government pays ninety
cents of every.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Dollar for it.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Absolutely That's why it was so attractive when Kasik pressured
the people who buy and large did not want medicaid expansions.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
So, yes, you got that correct.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Isn't is it medicaid or Medicare. That is one of
the biggest line items in the state.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Budget, Medicaid.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
So remember that Medicare is a federal program that we're
required to go on, and then Medicaid is an entitlement program,
and that's what we call them because you are entitled
to receive these benefits under traditional medicaid, you are entitled.
So if you're blind, disabled, elderly, pregnant mom who is

(02:28):
low income, pregnant mom and a low income child that
was traditional medicaid, And in fact, I'm the chair of
the Medicaid Committee, So we're trying to like protect our
traditional medicaid group because I think as a society that's
the part that we pretty much as Ohioans, we believe

(02:49):
those people need to be protected, and so we're looking
at that group to be sure that we try to
maintain it's, you know, we need to have like Civic
Conda Civic Medicaid and not Cadillact Medicaid because what I
see and what I'm noting is in some cases and
those people on Medicaid may not always agree, but you and.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Your private insurance.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Probably are dealing with things that you that you do
and wouldn't have to face on Medicaid. For instance, a
child on Medicaid gets mental care and vision, so we
don't offer that on a traditional medical plan through your
traditional insurance, so and mental health through our medicaid. A

(03:33):
lot of mental health providers try to get Medicaid because
we reimburse higher than traditional medicine, and sometimes traditional medicine
makes you pay cash for your psychiatric health or mental
health care. So there's there are some good things about
our Medicaid system. The challenge, like any program, is you know,
our number one expense on our snap which is our

(03:55):
food stamp program, is soda pop. So the challenge is
what's required, right, like what is compassionate?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
What is loving?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
What is and what's compassionate to the taxpayer. Also, we
have to not throw out compassion to the medicaid population
and then be uncompassionate or dispassionate to the person paying
the bill, which is a middle class.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I mean, you're earning eighty eight thousand family.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Of four, which which is not high on the hog.
You don't qualify for Medicaid, but you're paying all these benefits.
So yeah, finding a balance is important.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Prior to the expansion, I mean, what this group, the
expanded group? In what way was it expanded? Were the
income levels done away with? Or how do we end
up with this many people getting on the program? I
think what it jumped a sizeable percentage after the expansion
went in.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, it's a challenge because you either do it all
or none. You can't do partial expansions. So the agreement
was you spand and so the states said, well, gosh,
we only have to pay ten cents and the federal
government's going to pay ninety cents, which you and I
can have a long discussion about autonomy and sovereignty and

(05:12):
why would we take, you know, those golden handcuffs from
the federal government. Right but it was even under a
Republican governor caseiic and in many cases the states that yeah,
and the people that are expanding are under government right
now Republican governors. So but anyway, so they said they

(05:34):
kind of lured us in with that. Then the population
qualification is if you're earning one hundred and thirty three
percent or less of poverty level, and you know, and
so people got on the challenges. There are some and
there aren't tall There are a lot of people that
are working that are making under the minimum, but there

(05:55):
are a lot of really good jobs out there right now.
And some people, not all I don't want to you know,
have a lot of hate mail to my box. But
there are some people who purposely don't work above a
limit because they don't want to lose their Medicaid benefits.
And so we're looking at that. And right now you
may have seen yesterday that the federal government is talking

(06:16):
about cutting eight hundred and eighty billion dollars of Medicaid
benefits from the Fed.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
They're not going to.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Tell the states they have to, but what that means
is you, Brian, get to pay the difference. So if
the federal government stops spending ninety cents of the dollar,
then ohilends will pick up another ten twenty thirty forty cents,
which is a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
That we call the people that.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Were the expansion Group eight. These are people that are
not making enough money right now to qualify for healthcare.
I mean to to not to not they're not making
they're making as little money as possible to be able
to qualify, and or they're working really hard and they

(07:05):
can't make enough money to qualify for insurance.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, and I understand that component. But you know, if
you add up all the government benefits that are available
to someone, I think you have to make at least
like forty thousand dollars a year to cover what the
government will give you for free. So there's a real
disincentive to work there. But we used to have at
least I thought we had in place work requirements that
you had to show some initiative and some effort to

(07:30):
gain employment. Or go to continuing education classes or education
classes so you could obtain employment. Is there anything remotely
close to that now and are they considering something along
those lines?

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Great question, Brian. We had one that we had submitted
right before Biden was chosen to be president, and what
happened was the Biden administration stopped that.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
So we have not had.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Work requirements for the last four years. The legislature as
well as the Medicaid the Ohio Department of Medicaid through
buy a requirement of the legislature will.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Filed for a waiver.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
So that's the other thing that's really I think that
I really want your listeners and you to hear, is
that most of the changes we make to our medicaid system,
a lot of them, we have to go back to
the federal government because we've taken this money and asked
their permission to do it. So those golden handcuffs came
with you have to provide this, this and this, you

(08:31):
must do this, this and this, and if we want
to change anything, we have to go back to the
federal government and say, pretty please, pretty please, can we.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Change our program?

Speaker 3 (08:39):
And so that's what I've been asking, you know, my
Congressman and Warren Davidson, as well as our Senator Bernie Marino,
and I haven't had the conversation with the newest Senator Houston,
but that we need more flexibility at the state level
to be able to manage our program locally. So out

(09:00):
for work requirements in December, we said we are, we
had the intent to file and then when medicate. Oh
and here's the beautiful thing. Think about this. So the
legislature says we want a waiver, I the legislature have
to go through the department chair and in that case
it's the Ohio Department of Medicaid director have her right

(09:24):
the waiver and she negotiates with the federal government. So
I have an unelected bureaucrat negotiating with the federal government
for what the legislature is saying needs to be done. Now,
there's typically a fairly good back and forth in relationship there.
But why we have to go through bureaucrats to get

(09:45):
what we want right? And that's in everything. So if
we change, for instance, we take soda out of the
SNAP program, we have to go back to the federal government.
We have to ask them we would like to remove
this from our food program.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
And I think people need to understand it's not just
Jennifer Gross, chair of the first Ohio House Medicaid Committee
in our history, she can do all this. No, I mean,
we can come up with ideas for that. But let
me get back to you had asked me about some
of these people the group aid are healthy, able bodied

(10:25):
people that can work. These are not people that have disability.
They're not blind, they're not elderly, they're not developmentally delayed teenagers.
These are all people that are able bodied. So we
have now submitted a work requirement for that group that
is and it's changing right now. It's in a more state.

(10:49):
But you have to work a minimum of twenty hours
a week, or go to school twenty hours a week,
or be taking care of an elderly parent twenty hours
a week, and that has to be you know confirmed.
And then I believe we also have a drug rehab
component in there as well. A lot of our group
bates do have you know.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Addiction issues.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
So those people we won't be able to, you know,
really work with as much.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
But you can get them into a program that might
ultimately help them by helping them kick the addiction. It's
a vehicle to get them clean. But Jennifer, I want
to hold you over. I got more questions, and I'm
sure my listener are curiosity is quite piqued about this.
So let's keep Jennifer Gross on the line and let
me mention Zimmer HVAC for three generations. This is a
very proud company, the Zimmer family third generation with Chris

(11:40):
Zimmer at the helm of Zimmer Heating and air Conditioning
for all of your heating and air conditioning needs. Are
the ones to call. Customer service will be fantastic, the
price will always be right. They have maintenance programs to
help prolong the life of your HVAC system. Haven't come
over annually, inspected, clean it, you know, service it, make
sure everything's in operating order. That's a good plan they've
got going on there. And they service all different kinds

(12:01):
of make some models. But they are an authorized carrier
dealer and if you need a new HVAC system, carrier
is the way to go. They're the ones that invented
air conditioning. UH. They have overnight kind of service, so
you can schedule appoyment at go Zimmer dot com. Up
right hand corner you'll see after hours and you'll see
regular appointments to be scheduled. Go ahead, do it simply
and easily on the website, or call Chris Zimmer at

(12:24):
five one three five two one ninety eight ninety three
and tell them Brian said hi when you do it
five one three five two one ninety eight ninety three.
Again online, it's go Zimmer dot com.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
This is fifty five KRC, an iHeartRadio station.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
My name is Kryle Tequila.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
There's your Channel nine weather forecast slicks on the roads
out there. Please be careful this morning. I have twenty
two today cloudy skies and overnight down to thirteen with
clouds thirty tomorrow. The flood warning ends at one thirty
in the afternoon. We'll get some sun too, Overnight down
to thirteen with clouds and warming up to thirty seven
on Saturday with mostly clear skies. Fourteen grades. Right now,

(13:04):
let's see what Chuck has on traffic.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
From the UCL Traffic Center. You see Healthy. You'll time
comprehensive care. That's so personal it makes your best tomorrow possible.
That's boundless care for better outcomes. Expect more. You see
health dot com southbound seventy five. Crews are working with
an accident above two seventy five. Right lanes are blocked,
then all lanes blocked on southbound seventy five at Paddock

(13:27):
due to a wreck involving a semi with a fuel spill.
South two seventy five break lights between Lawrence Perg and
the bridge. In bound seventy four back to Montana. Shot
King ramon fifty five KRCD talk station.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Seven twenty fifty five krc DE talk station by Thomas
talking with the highest state representative, Jennifer Gross, member of
the Ohio Medicaid Committee. Reaching out through the cecuitus process.
You got to go through to ask the federal government
for a waiver for a work requirement. That seems just preposterous,
but you explained it. It's there. You got to live
with it. But at least you have an administration that's

(14:01):
probably going to grant you the waiver that we're looking for, Jennifer,
is that your expectation from the Trump administration.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Absolutely, And in my third term in a term limited
Ohio Legislature, let me tell you something, having lived under
the Biden administration, I'm still getting used to this.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Winning.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
They're like, what like, they're probably not. I mean Biden
rejected it this time. We expect they'll accept it. So
our job is to make it strong as strong as possible.
We can always amend it if we go, oh, we
should have done that, or we see Florida did this
and we need to do that. But Brian, do you
mind if I talk to you. I want the people
to understand that are listening the cost of this program

(14:42):
to them, the taxpayer.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
It's one thing to have people come to me. You
can't take these people and let's talk.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
About how much of our budget goes to this program.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Do you mind?

Speaker 3 (14:52):
No? Yeah, so in state spending alone, when we don't
add the thirty percent hear me, Well, approximately thirty percent
of the Ohio budget comes from the federal government. So
when people tell me our whole entire budget, okay, When
people tell me, oh, well, you know we need to
go to the federal government, I'm like, okay, you in

(15:14):
order for Ohio to be sovereign, your legislature needs to
stop having our handout saying we'll take the money from
the federal government. Well, Jen, you know California, I'll get
it if we I don't care. I think we're Ohio
and we should extract ourselves from dependence on the federal government.
Having said that, when without our federal government spend, meaning

(15:38):
without the part that the federal government puts into our budget,
medicaid is twenty approximately don't quote me on all this,
twenty about twenty seven percent of our entire budget when
it's just our house, when.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
It's just our state.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Education is the number one cost in our state. Our
constitution says we will educate children. State that actually has
that in our constitution, but it is the number one
spend in the billions. Okay, So then if you add
the federal part into medicaid, the expense of medicaid in

(16:14):
our whole entire operating budget is fifty point three percent.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
I have to ask yes, So I have.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
To ask the listener. You know you're paying those taxes too,
They're just coming from the federal government. Remember, the government
makes how much nothing? We make nothing. Our job is
to spend your money wisely, which is why I don't
mean to sound harsh, but we cannot give Cadillac care
on Medicaid. That is not I and honestly, unless you

(16:41):
have concierge care and all of that. I don't think
anybody in Ohio gets concierge's care unless you're paying up
and above an extra for those things. So I think
it's important for the people to understand that the group eight,
the healthy body people. When we extended, they're twenty five
percent of our spend and this is forty seven billion

(17:05):
dollars a year. So yeah, so I mean, let's talk
about the money. It's easy to say, well, Jen, you
can't make these people go back to work.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well, the business.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Owners are crying for people. I have factories that will
pay processing lines people. They'll start at twenty two to
twenty three dollars an hour. If you earn that kind
of money. Twenty two dollars an hour, twenty dollars an hour,
and you work forty hours a week, Brian, and you're
married to someone who makes twenty twenty five, you don't
qualify for Medicaid, but you can.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Get an Obamacare. You can get an Obamacare policy and
get a tax deduction for it too, if you're in
lower income levels. For that, well, real quick here, I
know it's thinking. I got to ask you about fraud, waste,
and abuse. My understanding is we're one of the worst
states when it comes to spending and a misspending, I'll
call it that generally in the program. Are you doing
anything with your committee to get to the bottom of

(17:58):
that and drill down maybe we can find some savings
on the money going out the door.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
We absolutely are. Our auditor Auditor Favor did an audit
on Medicaid last year and he found when he pulled
a sample of people on Medicaid that twenty six percent
of the sample that we were paying Medicaid costs for
don't live in Ohio.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
So when you find that kind of stuff, because we're
a state that has something called self addest station. So
I know you're an attorney, but what this means is
that that if you if I go in and you
say are you on Medicaid? I can say, yep, Brian,
I am. And yet I live in Westchester, and you
know I won't say where I live, and I live
in a middle class home. And but if I say

(18:41):
I have Medicaid, they have to accept that. They don't
confirm it. They don't confirm my address, they don't come
firm my income level, none of it. So now we
are what we have to ask for waivers.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
In some of these things.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
But we're going to do regular cross checks because and
that's an answer to the auditor's audit. I mean, what
more do I need to say to you that our
auditor found this and what I've found, and it's taken me.
And this is why, you know, term limits are not
what everybody thinks they are. It takes us a while
to figure all of this out, and then in eight

(19:13):
years we're gone, but the bureaucrats stay, and so we
get into this huge spend because the bureaucrats keep spending
and I'm not there to be the doge over you know,
this system. But what we found is that we found
self attestation. We have self attestation in many areas of
the hospitals.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
If someone walks.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
In and they're you know, they have a big gash
on their arm and they say they're medicaid and they
bill it to medicaid, we have to pay simply because
the person said they had medicaid.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
That self attestation. We have no cross check. I don't check.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Lottery winnings, we don't check income, we don't check birthday,
we don't you know, that's.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Insane, that's absolutely insane, and that welcomes all kinds of
fraud and that figure is mind boggling, mind boggling. All right, well,
we have your commitment to get to the bottom of
that and hopefully get some I can't believe you got
to apply for a waiver to get rid of fraud,
waste and abuse in a program. I mean, that's that's

(20:12):
crazy right there, Jennifer Gross. Please keep us informed. You're
always welcome here. You got updates. You need pressure to
be brought to bear. I have my listeners get in
touch with their elected officials and screaming, yell about it. Whatever,
there's something we can do, love to help you out
with that one?

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Can I say, can I ask for help?

Speaker 2 (20:30):
So as doje.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
It takes people from our community and says, hey, let's help.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Right they went to the federal government.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
I would encourage the listeners to go to www. Dot LSC,
dot Ohio dot gov and look for HB ninety six.
That's the number of the budget, and look up what
we call the red books in whatever area they're interested in.
It doesn't always have to be medicaid though, because it's
so expensive. I would encourage them to go to education

(20:57):
and medicate. Our biggest spends. But look in there, look
at the details, try to figure it out. Send your recommendations,
say we don't need that in our budget. Tell your representative,
not always me unless I'm your representative. Tell your representative,
I saw this, I want this removed.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
I saw this. I want this removed. A lot of
people want more and more and more.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
But you're paying. So if you think that's valuable, then
say so. But if you think it's waste, you need
to go in and if you want more information, right,
my colleagues will hate this stuff. If you want to
try to get more information, write your representative and say
I think I see a problem here.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Can you help me?

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Because we are there. This is a four thousand page budget.
We are a government of for and buy the people.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
We need more citizen watchdogs, and my listening audiences still
with them, so I encourage them to heed your advice
and help out by finding it and alerting your officials
with maybe appointed letter or phone called. Jennifer Gross, thank
you so much for bringing this to everybody's attention. I
wish you all the best of luck in the world.
On behalf of the Ohio tax payers and the American
taxpayers generally, getting some success over these challenges. And again

(22:06):
keep us informed because I'll be curious to know how
this all shakes out. Seven twenty nine. Right now, Donovan
ONeill up next. After I mentioned Chimneycare Fireplace in stove.
You got a wood burning fireplace or free standing stove,
you need to call the Chimneycare Fireplace as stove. It's
a great time to do it because they're doing a
winter special Winter Special which is a wood burning sweep

(22:28):
and evaluation for only one hundred and sixty nine dollars
and ninety nine cents plus tax. Great value. They do
a video camera inspection of your chimney, find out if
there's any problems in there like water dam age of
cracked lining, or it just needs to be swept. And
if it does, they got certified chimney sweeps. It'll take
care of all that for the low low price that
I just quoted. So, wood burners, you know you need
to keep an eye out for that creosoap build up

(22:49):
and everyone needs to take care of their safety. Get
a carbon monoxide detector. Please learn more online schedule your
appointment online too. It's Chimneycareco dot com. Chimneycareco. Dot com
A plus the Better is Bureau locally owned and operated
since nineteen eighty eight online Chimneycareco. Dot Com five one, three,
two four eight ninety six hundred fifty five KRC the

(23:10):
talk station.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
The countdown is