WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined Ohio veteran Mark Caddo today to outline how the House plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act will threaten healthcare for 71,000 Ohio veterans covered by Medicaid.

“We owe all of our veterans – and the families who support them – our gratitude, our respect, and the best healthcare in the world,” said Brown. “The last thing we ought to be doing is making it harder for these men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country to get the care they need. When returning home, they should be able to focus on spending time with loved ones and rejoining their communities, not worrying about how they’ll afford healthcare.”

Despite common misconceptions, many veterans and their family members do not qualify for health insurance coverage through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and many of them rely on Medicaid as their only alternative.

  • A report released this week by FamiliesUSA finds that Medicaid covers 1.75 million veterans nationally and 71,000 veterans in Ohio.
  • According to the Kasich Administration, 25,000 of those Ohio veterans are covered through the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, along with 12,000 family members of veterans.

The House repeal bill would eliminate the Medicaid expansion, kicking those 25,000 Ohio veterans and 12,000 family members off of their health insurance. Then the bill would cut an additional $880 billion from traditional Medicaid, threatening coverage for the other 46,000 Ohio vets covered by the program.  

For every $1 Ohio spends caring for veterans through Medicaid, on average, 63 cents comes from federal dollars that would be cut by the House bill.

Brown was joined on the call by Mark Caddo, an Ohio veteran.

Brown, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, is the longest-serving Ohioan who has sat on the committee.

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