Medicaid: to expand it or not?
GOP lawmakers remain skeptical of added
expenses
By Catherine Candisky and
Jim Siegel
Tuesday January 29, 2013 5:38 AM
Despite growing
support to expand the state Medicaid program from business leaders, health-care
providers and others, Gov. John Kasich will have to win over conservative
lawmakers from his own party if he wants more poor and disabled Ohioans covered
by the health-insurance program.
“Obviously, our caucus
has concern about any expansion of that program, simply because of the
expenses,” House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, said last week.
“Every so often, the law of unintended consequences occurs and there’s a real
concern with the federal government.”
Batchelder, the
most-senior member of the legislature, said he served on the state’s first
Medicaid study committee in 1971. “I recall people saying the expenditure might
reach $1 billion,” he said of a program that now costs more than $15 billion a
year.
Not in Ohio
Published: January 28, 2013 - 11:07 PM
If
Bill Batchelder has anything to say about it, Ohio won’t be altering the way it
awards Electoral College votes. The House speaker shared his opposition last
week to a shift from the winner-take-all system to awarding the votes according
to the victor in each congressional district.
Republican
lawmakers in Virginia have been moving toward the district model. The party has
been flirting with the idea in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democratic Party
officials have warned about Ohio taking the leap.
States
have much authority in deciding the divvying of electoral votes. Republican
gerrymandering would have served Mitt Romney well, carrying a large majority of
the Virginia votes even as President Obama prevailed at the ballot box.
Lawyers making up less of state House,
Senate
The Columbus Dispatch Monday January 28, 2013 7:36 AM
How many lawyers does
it take to pass a bill?
Not as many as it used
to.
There was a time when
it was commonplace for up to half the General Assembly to be made up of
lawyers. Lawmakers create the law, while lawyers study and practice the law.
It’s an obvious fit.
But this session,
fewer than a quarter of all state lawmakers hold a law degree. In the House,
there are only 20 lawyers out of 99 members, including only eight of 60 majority
Republicans.
House Speaker William
G. Batchelder, R-Medina, a veteran lawyer and former judge, said when he came
to the House in 1969 there were 52 lawyers in the House.
He wondered whether
the reduced numbers are a result of the fact that the “economics of the law
practice are not as good as they used to be.”
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/01/28/lawyers-making-up-less-of-house-senate.html
State looking into Rep. Beck
Lawsuit says Mason Republican helped defraud
investors out of $1.2 million
The Columbus Dispatch Sunday January 27, 2013 11:36 AM
On the heels of a
second Ohio lawmaker being sentenced to prison last week, The Dispatch
has learned that the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Securities is
investigating the role of a key legislative committee chairman and others in a
multimillion-dollar investment deal gone bad.
Word of the
investigation of Rep. Peter Beck, in progress for months, comes on top of other
problems involving the Republican from Mason, a Cincinnati suburb.“There is a
situation in the Cincinnati area that our division of securities received a
number of complaints on investment situations,” said Lyn Tolan, spokeswoman for
the commerce department.
Posted: 12:00
a.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013
Luckie conviction latest in growing FBI crackdown on corruption
Columbus bureau
COLUMBUS —
In just eight
months, the Ohio House of Representatives has seen two of its lawmakers
indicted, convicted and sentenced to years in prison for bribery and theft —
felony activity that may have gone undetected had it not been for the FBI’s
decision to assign five agents to dig into public corruption.
Last week,
former state Rep. Clayton Luckie, a Dayton Democrat, pleaded guilty to eight
felony charges and one misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years in state
prison.
“Public
corruption is a top priority for the FBI in order to maintain an honest and
accountable form of elected government. Corrupt public officials can undermine
public confidence in our government, misuse tax dollars, and impact the safety
and security of our nation,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Edward J. Hanko
of the Cincinnati field office.
Budget maneuvering could strengthen Ohio
Democrats' hand: Thomas Suddes
By Thomas Suddes, The Plain Dealer
on January 26, 2013 at 1:00 PM, updated January 26, 2013 at 1:03 PM
on January 26, 2013 at 1:00 PM, updated January 26, 2013 at 1:03 PM
Ohio Democrats'
political mistakes in the last few years have put them in a Statehouse box. The
paradox is that they could escape that box thanks to budget bargaining with
Republican Gov. John Kasich.
He's expected to announce his proposed 2013-15 budget
on Feb. 4. And, on a couple budget fronts, Kasich's natural allies may well be
Democrats, because some mulish Republicans, notably in the Ohio House, may buck
him.
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