Five the fifty five carc detalk station.
Coming up.
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,
it's always a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for being on the program this morning.
Thank you, Ryan, Good morning.
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 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
that enter the system under the expansion. Do I have that accurate?
Well, that we want to get rid of it, maybe not accurate. The fact that the federal government pays ninety cents of every.
Dollar for it.
Absolutely That's why it was so attractive when Kasik pressured the people who buy and large did not want medicaid expansions.
So, yes, you got that correct.
Isn't is it medicaid or Medicare. That is one of the biggest line items in the state.
Budget, Medicaid.
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 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 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.
Your private insurance.
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 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 food stamp program, is soda pop. So the challenge is what's required, right, like what is compassionate?
What is loving?
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.
I mean, you're earning eighty eight thousand family.
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.
Now.
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.
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 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 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 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 about cutting eight hundred and eighty billion dollars of Medicaid benefits from the Fed.
They're not going to.
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.
That we call the people that.
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 can't make enough money to qualify for insurance.
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 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?
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.
So we have not had.
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.
Filed for a waiver.
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 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.
Change our program?
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 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 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 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.
You know.
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 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. 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.
Addiction issues.
So those people we won't be able to, you know, really work with as much.
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 Zimmer at the helm of Zimmer Heating and air Conditioning
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the bridge. In bound seventy four back to Montana. Shot King ramon fifty five KRCD talk station.
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 probably going to grant you the waiver that we're looking for, Jennifer, is that your expectation from the Trump administration.
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.
Winning.
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 to them, the taxpayer.
It's one thing to have people come to me. You can't take these people and let's talk.
About how much of our budget goes to this program.
Do you mind?
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 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 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.
It's just our state.
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 our whole entire operating budget is fifty point three percent.
I have to ask yes, So I have.
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 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 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.
Well, the business.
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.
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 that and drill down maybe we can find some savings on the money going out the door.
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.
Oh my god.
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 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.
In some of these things.
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 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.
If someone walks.
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.
That self attestation. We have no cross check. I don't check.
Lottery winnings, we don't check income, we don't check birthday, we don't you know, that's.
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 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?
Can I say, can I ask for help?
So as doje.
It takes people from our community and says, hey, let's help.
Right they went to the federal government.
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 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.
I saw this. I want this removed. A lot of people want more and more and more.
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.
Can you help me?
Because we are there. This is a four thousand page budget. We are a government of for and buy the people.
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 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,
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