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President Donald Trump’s signature law of his second term provides vastly more benefits to the rich Ohioans than to any other group, and it also takes more away from Ohio’s most vulnerable families than most people might realize, a new analysis says.
This summer, congressional Republicans passed — and Trump signed — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and it was controversial.
It extended tax cuts he signed in 2017. The extension provides $1 trillion to the richest 1 % of Americans over the next 10 years. At the same time, it cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding and nearly $200 billion in food assistance over the same period.
But an analysis by Policy Matters Ohio said that if you examine the details, the legislation is even worse for poor and middle-class Ohioans.
Referring to Trump’s signature law as H.R. 1, it noted that many of the least popular cuts are delayed until after the 2026 midterm elections, and others are obscured in other ways.
“This smoke-and-mirrors approach to promoting H.R. 1 was partly possible because many of the budget’s largest cuts are just plain hard to understand — and there are a lot of cuts coming from a lot of different directions,” it said.
For example “… Congressional leaders chose to dramatically reduce revenues states rely on to finance their share of Medicaid, to fund Medicaid expansion, to weather budget short-falls and to expand services,” the Policy Matters report said.
“States will now be responsible for a higher burden of health care costs due to H.R. 1’s restrictions on these revenue streams.”
One way the Trump law will do that is by phasing down “state directed payments.”
Those are payments states can instruct Medicaid managed-care providers to make to cover certain expenses.
H.R. 1 also prohibits states from increasing provider taxes or creating new ones.
Those two measures will take away between $6.5 billion and $13 billion over the next decade to fund the state’s Medicaid expansion, the report said.
The expansion provides health coverage to 770,000 Ohioans and has cut the state’s uninsured rate in half.
In June, Gov. Mike DeWine signed a budget containing a provision that would end Ohio’s Medicaid expansion if the federal government funds less than 90% of the cost.
That’s a real possibility in light of the cuts buried in the law Trump signed this summer.
“In short, Congressional leaders chose to dramatically reduce revenues states rely on to finance their share of Medicaid, to fund Medicaid expansion, to weather budget short-falls and to expand services,” the Policy Matters report said.
“States will now be responsible for a higher burden of health care costs due to H.R. 1’s restrictions on these revenue streams.”
Huge numbers of Ohioans also could lose federal food benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or SNAP, program.
The state got an idea of the effects of such a loss last month, when Trump decided to delay food benefits during the partial government shutdown.
Many Ohio food pantries reported record demand during the resulting crisis.
The bill he signed this summer will take away an estimated $416 million a year in food assistance to needy Ohioans.
Given that the average recipient gets just $6.17 per day from the program, the loss will be felt by many.
Ninety two percent of adult SNAP recipients under 65 are either working, in school, ill and unable to work, or unable to because of caregiving responsibilities.
Most others can only receive three months of benefits in a three year span unless they can show that they’re either working or receiving 80 hours of job training each month.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act removed exceptions for the homeless, people between 55 and 64, people living in areas with high unemployment, parents whose youngest child is 14, veterans and former foster youth.
“The Urban Institute estimates that 717,000 Ohio families will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits under the administration’s megabill,” the Policy Matters report said.
In addition, states will now face gigantic charges if their error rates in processing SNAP benefits aren’t reduced to what some experts see as unrealistic levels.
Ohio lawmakers will be faced with the prospect of finding money elsewhere if many thousands are to avoid going sick or hungry, or both, the report said.
It added that the General Assembly has a poor track record in such matters.
“In Ohio, state legislators have created an increasingly inequitable tax system over the last two decades, costing the state $12.8 billion in lost annual revenues per year (largely through cuts to income taxes) as of 2024,” it said.
“This lost revenue amounts to almost half of the tax revenue collected by Ohio for its General Revenue Fund in fiscal year 2024.”
Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.
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Marty Schladen, The Ohio Capital Journal
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