CLEVELAND — If Congress moves forward with proposed cuts to Medicaid no Congressional district in the state would be more impacted than the Congresswoman Shontel Brown's 11th District in Cuyahoga County.
"What's going to happen in the 11th Congressional District is nearly 300,000 people will be impacted by these cuts," Brown said.
The Department of Energy Commerce estimates that 38% of the population there relies on Medicaid. With the Center for American Progress estimating the district could see more than $3.1 billion in cuts over the next nine years.
Brown's office has received calls and emails from constituents concerned about the cuts like Adrienne Morrell of Shaker Heights who attended a town hall Brown held last week. Her adult son has a developmental disability.
"Him being without Medicaid is a real serious issue, it's a life, it's life altering," Morrell said.
The Center for American Progress estimates the district, represented Brown, could see more than $3.1 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next nine years.
Beyond that the 11th Congressional district is home to the state's largest employer the Cleveland Clinic, the state's 8th largest employer, University Hospitals, as well as MetroHealth.
Brown worries about the impact on them and hospitals across the state.
"We can expect to see what happened in, I think it was like 1997, they had a proposal that would have similar effects of what we're anticipating now where several hospitals started to close down," Brown said. "So we want to be able to try to circumvent that, we want to prevent that from happening."
We anticipate our hospitals will be damaged which will have residual negative impacts throughout the community."
It was something former Gov. John Kasich warned about when he sought to expand Medicaid in 2013.
"You want to create chaos?" Kasich said at the time. "Don't pass this and see what happens to the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals up there in Cleveland. It will be a very bad impact on them."
He had to go around the legislature to do it but he was able to expand Medicaid which has since added 770,000 Ohioans to the roles of the insured. Since then the Cleveland Clinic has seen its employment swell by over 40%, UH by more than 60%.
That expansion, which came with the commitment from Washington to cover 90% of the cost and the state the remaining 10% could be in jeopardy though. Gov. Mike DeWine put a clause in the just released state budget proposal that states if Congress decides to pay less than that 90%, the state would immediately discontinue all medical assistance for those extra 700,000 covered under that Medicaid expansion.
The one possible silver lining if these cuts pass out of the house is they would have to be approved as well by the Senate. And Senator Bernie Moreno tells News 5 Medicaid cuts, for him, will be a non-starter.
"Republicans are not going to cut Medicaid benefits at all," Moreno said adding there will be reforms to the system to make it more efficient and eliminate fraud but Republican cuts to Medicaid in the House won't be supported by his colleagues in the Senate. We're not going to take away benefits from people who actually need them.
"Just to make it crystal clear to your viewers, because we don't want people to be worried or scared about something that may happen. Anybody who needs Medicaid is going to receive Medicaid. What we're going to do is make the system more efficient, we're going to stop giving it to illegal migrants for example. We're going to stop giving it to people in other countries which has happened through fraud.
"But anybody watching this broadcast, does not need to worry about their benefits being cut. That is something we should not be doing is scaring people unnecessarily," he said.
It's news to Morrell's ears, news she wishes other Republicans would then be more vocal about.
"Why aren't they telling people this. It's like everybody's just sitting there in some sort of comatose state wondering what's tomorrow going to bring."
