Folks, You're Not Going to Believe It

Today The Rooster is about the government doing a good thing for everyday people.

Sometimes I wonder if selling my poorly edited diatribes about America being a failed state might not be the most potent business plan ever devised. (Subscribe today!)

Today might have been no different, with the Ohio House Health Committee, led by a literal mattress salesman, urging Republic leadership to re-convene the House early for a bill banning (all) vaccine mandates.

Or perhaps I could have delved into an Ohio court sentencing a black woman to 18 months in prison the day after giving a white woman probation for the same crime.

But no, the federal government stopped our hobgoblin state government from enacting wanton cruelty on millions of Ohioans, and we’re going to have a discourse.

From Titus Wu of dispatch.com:

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services late Monday withdrew approval of a work requirement Ohio wanted to implement to determine Medicaid eligibility.

It's a step back for the Ohio Department of Medicaid and the state's conservative politicians, who say such requirements are necessary for the governmental health insurance covering around 3 million low-income and disabled Ohioans. 

The decision by President Joe Biden's administration was "extremely disappointing," U.S. Sen Rob Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, and Gov. Mike DeWine said in statements.

"Work requirements provide much-needed flexibility in the Medicaid system to provide greater well-being and self-sufficiency to individuals who are able to work, while slowing the growth rate of Medicaid and thus the burden on taxpayers," Portman said.

Make no mistake, a step backwards for the state’s conservative politicians are three steps forward for working people. Of course Rob Portman and Mike DeWine are “extremely disappointed” by more of their constituents having healthcare. That’s such searing insight into the Republican mind.

Portman’s statement, however, deserves a full break down. What he means by “provide much-needed flexibility” is that in his world as few people as possible would receive Medicaid, no matter how many Ohioans are actually eligible.

It says a lot about American society that Portman can paint poor people as lazy bums unworthy of healthcare, thus becoming a “burden on taxpayers” while uttering nary a peep about the unfathomable amount of money that we throw into the military-industrial complex every year despite having no true geopolitical rival in that arena.

Credit to the Biden Administration for recognizing that this was never about “work requirements” — which were enforced in racist ways — and more about erecting bureaucratic hurdles to stop Ohioans from claiming benefits to which they were legally entitled.

This is a move that will inevitably save lives and improve many more. Republicans don’t care about any of that, and it’s nice to know that somebody in the Biden Administration did. This is the kind of win that doesn’t come along much in Ohio politics, so be sure to cherish it.

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