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 »
Governor John Kasich and other supporters of expanding Medicaid in Ohio make a strange economic case for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion, portraying millions in new state spending as responsible because it would be offset by billions in new federal spending. The left-leaning Urban Institute, in estimates the Kaiser Family Foundation released last November, projected that Ohio’s adoption of the PPACA | Read More »
The contents of a March 15 Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio (UHCAN Ohio) web training for progressive activists interested in lobbying for Medicaid expansion bore a striking resemblance to talking points from Governor John Kasich and his administration. Kasich, a Republican, has decided to pursue billions in new federal funding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) promises to states that expand | Read More »
Governor John Kasich has insisted Ohio can adopt the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion temporarily and back out in the future by including a “circuit breaker” provision that would revoke new Medicaid eligibility if Washington changes the rules. Ohio’s newspapers, which enthusiastically support Medicaid expansion, have reported Kasich’s claims without skepticism. With the federal government more than $16.7 trillion in debt but promising | Read More »
A Hill Research Consultants poll conducted March 3-4 found that 65 percent of Republican primary voters oppose Governor John Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid as called for in President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Commissioned by Opportunity Ohio and The Liberty Foundation, the poll surveyed 803 active Ohio voters by telephone, with a 4 percent margin of error. Overall, respondents were evenly | Read More »
Opportunity Ohio President Matt Mayer released a report titled “Competitive Federalism: Leveraging the Constitution to Rebuild America” via The Liberty Foundation of Oklahoma last week. Opportunity Ohio was listed in the report as one of thirty Liberty Foundation partners with the shared goal of advancing state-based solutions to problems faced nationwide. The Liberty Foundation, whose launch coincided with the release of Mayer’s Competitive Federalism report, | Read More »
Medicare Board of Trustees member Charles Blahous released a Mercatus Center report on March 5 recommending states take advantage of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2012 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) ruling by mostly rejecting the law’s Medicaid expansion. Blahous concluded that states “all appear to face one common, powerful incentive arising from the court’s ruling: to decline to cover childless adults at | Read More »
Ohio Governor John Kasich has conflated government spending with personal charity in his arguments for Medicaid expansion, adopting one of the central pillars of progressive philosophy. Kasich’s portrayal of deeper debt and bigger government as the Christian path strongly resembles President George W. Bush’s talk of “compassionate conservatism,” which assented to progressive arguments that conservatism by itself is heartless. “Well, I think it makes sense | Read More »
Ohio Right to Life president Michael Gonidakis belittled the Ohio Liberty Coalition (OLC) and every other conservative group in the state in a February 27 Columbus Dispatch editorial promoting Governor John Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid. Gonidakis, who Kasich appointed to the State Medical Board of Ohio just four months ago, parroted the Republican governor’s progressive talking points for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Medicaid expansion. “Memo | Read More »
Union campaign committee We Are Ohio cannot name a single right that would be revoked by a “No Rights at Work” law, which would give workers the freedom to opt out of paying union dues. Questioned about workplace freedom after the topic came up at the group’s February 19 “State of the Worker” press conference, We Are Ohio responded only with disjointed propaganda. Media Trackers | Read More »
Governor John Kasich forcefully repeated multiple falsehoods about expanding Medicaid eligibility in Ohio during his 2013 State of the State address on February 19. As he and his administration have done for weeks, Kasich falsely insisted that Ohio’s promised federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) funding for expanding Medicaid will be sent to other states if Ohio rejects the expansion. The Ohio Channel | Read More »
Governor John Kasich has falsely insisted that if Ohio does not expand Medicaid eligibility, federal Medicaid expansion funds for Ohio will be sent to other states. With some Ohio legislators hesitant to worsen America’s $16.5 trillion national debt, the Kasich administration has inaccurately claimed that rejecting Medicaid expansion would not prevent federal spending. Contrary to February 14 Ohio House of Representatives testimony from the Republican | Read More »
Governor John Kasich worked with the far-left Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio (UHCAN Ohio) to build his case for Medicaid expansion, a central piece of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Washington Post blogger Sarah Kliff detailed Kasich’s strategy in a February 6 Wonkblog entry. “Rather than having to convince the governor, Obamacare supporters were asked to focus their efforts on convincing | Read More »
Ohio Governor John Kasich Governor John Kasich has defended his decision to expand Medicaid eligibility in Ohio with logic he rejected when killing a “high-speed rail” project barely two years ago. Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, emphasized the need to goose Ohio’s economy using our “fair share” of federal funds – an argument Kasich, a Republican, is now employing to justify Medicaid expansion. The 2010 | Read More »
Governor John Kasich’s proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility in Ohio after years of criticizing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly known as Obamacare, means a total collapse in Kasich’s credibility on Washington spending. Kasich, a Republican, was elected in 2010 due in part to his record as a fiscal hawk in the U.S. House of Representatives. This Heritage Foundation chart depicts entitlement | Read More »
The Ohio Education Association (OEA), union campaign arm We Are Ohio, and other labor groups hope to convince Ohioans that workplace freedom kills workers. Ohio union bosses are desperate to keep mandatory union dues in place across the state following the December 2012 adoption of a right to work law in neighboring Michigan. Confronted with evidence that letting workers choose whether to pay a union spurs | Read More »
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