Betting on Medicaid expansion and another State of the State road trip: Thomas Suddes
For the second year in a row, Gov. John Kasich’s State of the State address will be given miles away from the usual venue, the Ohio Statehouse.
The introduction of an Ohio governor’s proposed state budget is the Statehouse equivalent of the Super Bowl. On Feb. 4, Gov. John Kasich will introduce his second budget, most likely — as to the scope and variety of policies in a single measure — one of the most sweeping in decades.
In the budget, Kasich almost certainly will call for Ohio to expand Medicaid, as it is allowed (but not required) to do by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
He’ll do so because it’s the right thing, and because it’s the common-sense thing. Partisan caterwauling aside, Medicaid expansion is a matter of economic development. An expansion probably would bolster Ohio’s smaller community hospitals. An Ohio county that loses its community hospital is less desirable for business relocations (or new residents) than a county with a community hospital.
Among those groups calling for Medicaid expansion in Ohio are regional metropolitan groups, notably in Greater Cleveland (the Northeast Ohio Medicaid Expansion Coalition) and in the Columbus area (examples: all four of its hospital systems — Mount Carmel, Nationwide Children’s, Ohio Health and Ohio State-Wexner — plus the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce). Perhaps most significantly, the Ohio State Medical Association last week urged Kasich and the General Assembly to expand Medicaid. If that didn’t ice the cake, nothing can.
Statehouse ‘traditions’
• Stockholders of the Akron octopus, FirstEnergy, may be irked about duplicate marketing by company bosses. The giant utility — parent of the Illuminating and Ohio Edison companies and many others — is paying the Browns for the right to rename Cleveland Browns Stadium as FirstEnergy Stadium.
The Akron Beacon Journal first reported the multiyear cost to FirstEnergy for naming rights as $102 million.
But FirstEnergy long ago bought and paid for the right — though the sign hasn’t been hung (yet) — to slap its name on what already amounts to a big public venue, this one in Columbus: The (FirstEnergy) Statehouse.
• The amiable and capable Rep. Ronald Gerberry, a suburban Youngstown Democrat, doesn’t want Kasich to again give his State of the State address outside Columbus. This year’s is planned for Lima, on Feb. 19; last year’s was in Steubenville. In a letter to House Speaker William Batchelder, a Medina Republican, Gerberry said moving the speech “destroys a historical tradition . . . and needs to be stopped before another tradition is lost.”
First off, all that the state constitution requires is that a governor “shall communicate at every session, by message, to the General Assembly, the condition of the state, and recommend such measures as he shall deem expedient.” That is, Kasich could send the General Assembly a letter, an email or — for that matter — microfilm flown in by a carrier pigeon. The “tradition” of an in-person State of the State by governors isn’t that ancient. It began in 1913 or 1914, when Gov. James M. Cox, imitating President Woodrow Wilson (who gave the first in-person State of the Union address), gave Ohio’s first in-person “state of the state.”
Second, Ohio’s governor can speak where and when he pleases. The only pertinent matters the legislature may need to vote on are a) whether to hold a joint Senate-House session and b) permitting either chamber to meet outside Columbus.
Third, Gerberry — a capable, smart legislator — told Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles that Kasich’s delivering the State of the State speech outside Columbus “disrespects the institution” of the legislature. Given the General Assembly’s antics, it’s tough to know just what there is for anyone to “disrespect.” But maybe, just maybe, giving the speech to a ceremonial General Assembly session held outside Columbus shows respect to some Ohioans who’ve actually earned it: the taxpayers.
Suddes, a member of The Plain Dealer’s editorial board, writes from Ohio University.