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Columbus Metropolitan Club: Unraveling Recovery: How Cutting Medicaid Threatens Ohioans in Crisis
June 4, 2025

Optimal Health Series
Is Ohio headed for a crisis in health coverage, especially for mental health and addiction services? More than a decade ago, Ohio’s Medicaid expansion was a game changer, extending coverage to over 700,000 Ohioans and providing a lifeline to thousands of Ohioans in need of mental health and addiction treatment services. Expansion worked: uninsured rates dropped, medical debt decreased, health improved, and emergency room visits went down. In just four years, 630,000 Ohioans received treatment for mental illness or substance use disorder, a victory in the fight against opioid addiction. In 2024, forty percent of adults covered by expansion had a primary mental health and/or substance use disorder diagnosis.

These gains may now be in jeopardy: Governor DeWine’s new proposed biennial budget includes a so-called “kill-switch” provision that would automatically end mental health and addiction services provided through the expansion if federal Medicaid funding is reduced.

With key leaders and policy experts, we’ll unpack the impact Medicaid has had on health outcomes in Ohio and the consequences facing patients in recovery if the state’s landmark care expansion is abandoned.

Featuring Oyauma Garrison, President & CEO, Maryhaven, Inc.; Rachelle Martin; Executive Director, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Franklin County; Amy Bush Stevens, Amy Bush Stevens Consulting, LLC, Consultant to the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, and with moderator Greg Moody, Director of Professional Development, The John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University.