U.S. Sen. Jon Husted downplayed the impact of Medicaid cuts contained in Republicans’ signature federal spending bill on Wednesday, saying the Senate tried to address concerns raised by hospitals in Ohio and elsewhere with late changes to the bill.
Husted, who was home in Ohio and spoke to reporters during a visit to Coshocton, said the bill includes an enhanced $50 billion relief fund for rural hospitals, which are worried about the bill’s $793 billion in Medicaid cuts. (Estimates say the bill will reduce national Medicaid rolls by 10.3 million people.) Smaller hospitals say the bill will reduce the number of paying patients and drive more people to the emergency room, where hospitals must provide care even to those who can’t pay for it. Husted and Sen. Bernie Moreno, who also voted for the bill, pushed for the $50 billion fund, including by unsuccessfully voting for an amendment that would have hiked taxes on the rich to pay for it.
The federal bill, which is still being finalized, also puts off a major looming cut that could cost Ohio’s Medicaid program billions of dollars: a reining in of the hospital “franchise tax” budgeting trick that Ohio and other states use to attract federal funding.
Husted said the bill leaves the state’s current budget bill alone, since it was passed first. And the federal bill won’t be fully phased in until 2031. It will be up to future state and hospital leaders to figure out how to reduce costs. In the meantime, Husted said a group of rural hospital CEOs thanked him for the last-minute changes he pushed to get into the bill.
“Ohio’s issues for the next two years have been addressed. But we have work to do,” Husted said.
Otherwise, Husted said the Big Beautiful Bill helps shore up Medicaid by imposing work requirements for people between the ages of 18 and 64 who are covered through Medicaid expansion, a pool of working, poor people, and by reducing coverage of non-citizens.
“We’re going to bankrupt our country if we don’t begin to get health care costs under control,” Husted said. “And there are ways that you can do that without impacting anyone who relies on these services.”
Cleveland Cliffs unveils new production line
Husted spoke with reporters on Wednesday in Coshocton, where he, Gov. Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Cleveland Cliffs CEO Laurenco Goncalves took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new company project.
Cleveland Cliffs spent $150 million on a new hydrogen-powered stainless steel processing line. The site’s employees include 330 United Auto Workers members.
During the ceremony, Goncalves praised President Donald Trump for his 2017 tariffs aimed at shoring up the U.S. steel industry, and called on the U.S. Federal Reserve to slash interest rates. Both are in line with the Trump Administration’s agenda, as was a shoutout Goncalves gave to a company plant in Vice President JD Vance’s hometown.
“We’re going to hear about Middletown for decades to come. We have a long-term plan for Middletown, Ohio,” Goncalves said.
Map quest
Ohio’s state budget is in the history books. That means it’s time for the next big political item on state leaders’ to-do list: redrawing Ohio’s congressional map.
Under Ohio’s current map, Republicans hold 10 congressional districts while Democrats hold five. But Republicans could greatly increase their chances of winning three of the Democratic-held seats because those districts include a range of voters making them more competitive.
That’s why redistricting presents a golden opportunity for Republicans nationally, since Ohio districts give them a chance to add members in Congress, where only a few dozen seats are competitive and where Republicans currently hold a two-seat majority.
Click here to read more about what Republicans are thinking, how the process works and what legal and political factors might limit them.
A clean air law dies
Since 1974, Ohio has used a legal tool called the “air nuisance rule” to allow the court system to help enforce the Clean Air Act, the bedrock federal law that keeps the air clean in the United States.
As Jake Zuckerman reports, an anonymous amendment to the state budget signed this week by Gov. Mike DeWine killed the air nuisance rule in Ohio, taking from citizens and governments a powerful legal tool to sue industrial polluters. The change satisfies a six-year lobbying quest from the steel and coking industries, plus trade groups such as the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.
Larry Householder: state’s witness?
Ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is in prison for 20 years following his 2023 conviction for taking a bribe from FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for muscling legislation through the Statehouse to the company’s benefit. Meanwhile, state and federal prosecutors are seeking convictions of the former CEO accused of paying the bribes. And state prosecutors are waiting to try pile-on charges against Householder as a hedge in case President Donald Trump pardons him on a federal level. Householder was an early Trump supporter, and Trump has pardoned a hearty list of politicians convicted of corruption.
Late last month, state prosecutors disclosed a surprise witness to testify against former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones: Householder, with a listed address of “FCI Elkton – REG# 79002-061.”
A spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost confirmed the accuracy of the filing but declined to say whether a plea deal is in the works in exchange for Householder’s testimony.
Steven Bradley, Householder’s criminal defense attorney, said he wasn’t aware of the filing until a Signal Ohio reporter called him about it.
“I’m unaware of that,” he said Wednesday. “Nobody has had contact with either Larry or myself about that. So I don’t know anymore than that.”
A new veto record!
The legislative supermajorities in the Statehouse and the governor are all Republicans, but they maintain yawning gaps in priorities that seem more divergent than ever. Consider the number of vetoes Gov. Mike DeWine has issued in each of the four budgets – the biggest piece of legislation every biennium in terms of both fiscal and non-fiscal policy – that he has overseen. Notice the high number DeWine issued this week when he signed the state’s new budget into law.
The armchair political analysis says DeWine represents an older GOP of yore and the General Assembly reflects the modern, Trumpified Republican Party. And the 78-year-old DeWine isn’t seeking any office when his term ends in 2026, so perhaps he feels politically unleashed.
But what does DeWine have to say about the veto surge?
“Oh, I’m not gonna answer that,” he said to journalists Tuesday, grinning all the while. “It’s how it came out, you know. … It’s literally balls and strikes on each pitch. Every single one. That’s how we do it. It doesn’t mean we’re right, but I’m the guy who happens to be the governor. So I get the opportunity to do that. Now the legislature gets their shot [on veto overrides].”
A ‘political prop’ goes on trial
A Franklin County judge denied on Monday an Ohio woman’s attempt to get the illegal voting charge against her thrown out.
State prosecutors from Yost’s office indicted her shortly before the 2024 election – a contest Republicans flooded with spurious claims about noncitizens’ voting en masse – accusing her of illegally voting as a noncitizen in the 2018 election.
Maria Dearaujo, a Brazilian woman in her 60s who has lived here for 20 years as a lawful permanent resident, said the state violated her constitutional right to a speedy trial given the years between the alleged crime and the prosecution, not to mention the other state and local officials who declined to prosecute her case given the lack of evidence of fraud or deceit.
Signal Ohio previously reported how Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Chris Brown said the prosecution is “fishy” and that Yost turned a legal immigrant into a political prop. He denied the motion to dismiss, though meaning the case is going to a trial.
In the news
Gov. Mike DeWine uses budget vetoes to help schools, libraries and some on Medicaid
Ohio budget raises driver’s education age to 20
Who gets tax breaks – and tax hikes – in Ohio’s new budget
Here are some of the newly appointed big-name trustees steering Ohio’s public universities