Ohio Health Insurance and Health Care Reform
Ohio has a vested interest in what occurs in Congress as health care reform is figured out. According to Policy Matters Ohio, over 1 million Ohioans do not have Ohio health insurance. This is about 11% of those under 65 in Ohio. This is a huge percent and warrants concern.
The article “In Congress, political scrapping has just begun” by Jessica Wehrman in the Dayton Daily News, discusses the challenges Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio faces as he sits on the Senate Health, Environment, Labor and Pensions Committee. It’s been announced that committee Democrats have planned out a deal. It would include both a public option as well as employer responsibility options. Those provisions would require employers who could not offer health insurance to at least pay for a portion of the cost for employees to use the public plan.
Brown proposed that the measure would provide competition that would spur both the public and private insurance options to succeed. He also said in many cases the public option would be available where a private option hasn’t been.