Medicaid Expansion – From our Fairmount Temple GCC Healthcare Team Co-Chair Mitch Wasserman

This brief post, offered by Mitch Wasserman, the co-chair of our Healthcare Team at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, in our community organizing work through Greater Cleveland Congregations. In this post, we seek to inform and engender discussion among us, leading to our participation at an upcoming healthcare assembly on Thursday, January 24, 2013, at 7:00p.m., with the 40+ synagogues, churches and mosques involved in our Greater Cleveland Congregations. We encourage you to mark this date on your calendar and stand up for medicaid expansion in the State of Ohio, in the coming weeks. If you would like to learn more, please see instructions within the blog post. In addition, Rabbi Caruso, co-chair of Greater Cleveland Congregations will be speaking about the Medicaid Expansion issue in Ohio at the upcoming Shabbat worship service at Fairmount Temple on Friday, December 21 at 6:15p.m. Please join us.

Millions of Americans go without health care each year. Not only is this morally deplorable, the ever-declining health of the uninsured represents a profound drag on our economy in the form of expensive treatment & end of life care, uncompensated health services disproportionately borne by providers, lost productivity, lower purchasing power, etc.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would make health care coverage available to 800,000 low income Ohioans through the expansion of Medicaid. However, this increase in the number of people eligible for Medicaid is optional for the states.

Governor Kasich is presently determining whether or not to include the expansion of the program in Ohio in his biennial budget

The cost of the expansion would be covered at 100% by the Federal Government for the first 3 years of its implementation decreasing to 90% by year 6. Any costs assumed by the State would presumably be exceeded by revenues generated through the enactment of the expansion (i.e.coverage for prisoners, higher employment and purchasing power, income taxes, sales taxes, insurance policy taxes, etc.)

Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC), of which Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple is a founding member, has taken a leadership role in establishing the Northeast Ohio Medicaid Expansion Coalition (NEO MEC), which includes Cuyahoga County’s three major health care systems – The Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth – as well as 22 other provider agencies and health advocacy associations.

Please join us on January 24th at 7:00 p.m. at Olivet Baptist Church for the GCC Health Care Assembly. You will learn more about Medicaid Expansion in Ohio, how GCC and NEO MEC are working with the Governor’s Administration to make this a reality & how members of our congregation can help.

For further information about this significant effort, the assembly, or to learn how you can support this endeavor please contact Cathy Lipton at clipton@fairmounttemple.org or 216/464-1330 and she will pass your request on to Marcia Levine and/or Mitch Wasserman.