Mothers and Medicaid: Expanded health coverage would help Ohio families

Legislators should accept federal dollars to pay for comprehensive health care coverage for Ohio’s low-income workers. Approving a budget that expands Medicaid to 153,000 low-income working women, and others, will help mothers and babies get healthier in Ohio. As a result, families, communities, and our economy will grow stronger.

More than 153,000 Ohio women between the ages of 19 and 44 could gain health insurance coverage if Ohio expands the Medicaid program under health reform.[1] Expanding Medicaid to cover these women could help lower Ohio’s infant mortality rate, shockingly high in some counties and among some communities.

When women have health coverage before becoming pregnant and between pregnancies, they are healthier during pregnancy and their babies are more likely to be healthy at birth, research shows.[2] Yet thousands of low-income women do not have health coverage in Ohio.   Parents with children under 19 and earning less than 90 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for Medicaid. But parents earning more than 90 percent of poverty