Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Executive Director Joe Rugola, who last week compared supporters of workplace freedom to Nazis, was paid $253,351 in member dues during the union’s most recent fiscal year. Joe Rugola At a May 1 press conference, Rugola decried workplace freedom as “extreme.” Asked by reporters why 24 states already have workplace freedom laws on the books if the policy is | Read More »
Republican leadership in the Ohio Senate has received nearly $200,000 in labor union donations since 2011, secretary of state records reveal. Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) announced on May 1 that he does not expect the Senate to pursue workplace freedom, signaling majority support for forced unionism. Nine of Ohio’s top ten Republican recipients of union contributions since January 1, 2011 are state senators – | Read More »
Ohio Representative Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson) and Rep. Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) held a May 1 press conference announcing the introduction of two bills which would make Ohio the 25th workplace freedom state. Roegner has drafted legislation to prevent private-industry labor unions from taking dues as a condition of employment, while Maag is the primary sponsor of a parallel bill for government unions. Rep. Roegner noted that | Read More »
“Opposition to Medicaid expansion is purely ideological,” The Columbus Dispatch editors declared in an April 28 column taking the paper’s advocacy of its current pet cause to a new extreme. For three months the Dispatch has diligently overlooked arguments against Medicaid expansion in Ohio. Dispatch Chairman & Publisher John Wolfe “By opening the door to a bill to expand Medicaid to more Ohioans, Senate President Keith Faber has kept | Read More »
Ohio Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) confirmed during an April 24 press conference that he doesn’t expect the Senate to put the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion back in the state’s biennial budget. Instead, Sen. Faber explained that the Senate will develop separate Medicaid reform legislation in coordination with the Ohio House. “Now, it goes without saying, on Medicaid you need two | Read More »
The Ohio House of Representatives passed biennial budget House Bill 59 (HB 59) on April 18 without Governor John Kasich’s proposed Medicaid expansion, calling instead for a separate debate on the issue. There is no deadline for states to expand Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), but promised federal funding tapers off beginning in 2017. “Many thanks to those of you | Read More »
Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) insistence that its members need more taxpayer funding has featured prominently in the debate over expanding Medicaid, but is OHA really in a position to demand more state and federal dollars? Former OHA President & CEO James Castle, who was replaced by Michael Abrams this February, was paid $600,198 by the hospital lobbying group in 2011. The current chair of the | Read More »
Ohio’s debate over the Obamacare Medicaid expansion has been distorted by a media eager to carry water for bigger government, unquestioningly repeating talking points that collapse under any amount of scrutiny. Please share this video to help Media Trackers counter the fact that Ohio’s major newspapers have endorsed the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, marginalized its opponents, and printed puff piece after puff piece about health industry lobbyists, | Read More »
Hundreds of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion advocates rallied in front of the Ohio Statehouse on April 11, 2013, calling for the General Assembly to expand the entitlement program at an annual cost of billions in federal spending and hundreds of millions in state spending. After years of failed “stimulus” bills, broken health reform promises, and trillion-dollar deficits from President Obama, | Read More »
Governor John Kasich has wagered he can pressure the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly into expanding Medicaid by telling legislators they cannot stop billions in federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) spending. With the complicity of Ohio’s media, he may be right. The governor, a Republican with a reputation for fiscal conservatism, insists Medicaid expansion would keep “Ohio’s tax dollars” in the state instead | Read More »
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