(C) Ohio Capital Journal
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As Trump and Republicans make $1 trillion in cuts, Ohioans on Medicaid say coverage is life-saving • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
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Date: 2025-07-09
For 37-year-old Kyle Garvey, a typical day includes writing film reviews and doing some tutoring.
To do those things, the Columbus resident first needs to get out of bed.
Having had cerebral palsy since birth, that means having a home health provider to help him get out of bed, get dressed, eat meals, and anything else he needs during the day.
“It’s very basic life stuff,” Garvey told the Capital Journal.
The 11 hours per day of home care he receives is paid for by Medicaid, and the recent changes made to federally funded health care leave Garvey concerned.
“It’s important to me to have the stable support structure of Medicaid and Social Security,” Garvey said.
But Garvey insists his life “is a little bit stabler than a lot of people’s,” and speaking out about the importance of Medicaid, for him, is to help others.
“I know (Medicaid cuts) may not threaten me personally, and the cuts and stuff may not loom quite so tall over my personal life, but I’m just concerned about my community and the people that have worse situations than I do, and less of a support structure,” Garvey said.
The recently passed federal budget reconciliation bill made broad cuts of more than $1 trillion to the Medicaid program, largely in the implementation of work requirements and hospital tax changes.
Much of the changes targeted states who use their own funds to provide Medicaid to immigrants without “qualified” status. Estimates show nearly 12 million people across the country will lose their health insurance by 2034, as the Medicaid cuts are phased in.
What could be seen as a silver lining is the survival of Ohio’s Medicaid expansion group, which was in fear of elimination based on a provision of the state operating budget signed by Gov. Mike DeWine last week.
The provision of the state budget stated that if the federal contribution to the expansion group dropped by even 1% from the 90% contribution currently given to the state, Ohio would eliminate the expansion group, in a transition that could have resulted in more than 770,000 Ohioans losing their health insurance.
Nevertheless, health care advocates in Ohio say the federal cuts, as they stand now, will impact more than 400,000 Ohioans.
Willoughby resident Roman Sardo-Longo is a part of that expansion group that could have been on the chopping block. The 21-year-old is a first-generation American who credits Medicaid for opening up his life through mental health supports and gender-affirming care.
Sardo-Longo said he always had issues with anxiety and struggled to keep up with his education because he couldn’t bring himself to leave his house.
The fear of being misgendered as a transgender man, and delays in receiving gender-affirming care meant “everything was harder” for him.
“When I took my first (hormone replacement therapy) shot, I started to feel like my life was moving forward,” according to Sardo-Longo.
Medicaid is the only reason he could access the medical care that he needed to move forward and get his GED, think about going to school for engineering, and possibly get top surgery, he said.
He also joined Planned Parenthood’s “speaker’s bureau” as a way to tell the story of his health journey, and travelled to Washington D.C. to talk to congressional representatives about the budget changes.
“Very early on, things were really, really difficult for me, and so I don’t think I could have gotten through that part of my life without the therapy and the consults that I had,” he said. “You can’t work if you’re not healthy, you can’t work if you’re not happy or healthy enough.”
The necessity of Medicaid certainly isn’t lost on fellow Ohioan Mary Jane Sanese.
She spent a decade going through medical testing and appointments, and was eventually diagnosed at 23 with endometriosis, a chronic illness that affects the uterus, and can cause everything from inflammation to infertility.
The search for solutions was dependent on reliable health care and coverage.
“Even after (diagnosis), managing symptoms requires ongoing care with specialists,” Sanese said. “For me, that’s meant surgery, gastroenterology care, pelvic floor therapy, bladder treatments and routine preventive care to stay functional.”
But as she approached age 26, the age when she could no longer be covered by her mother’s health insurance, she couldn’t afford private insurance while working an hourly job and going to school full time.
She considered qualifying for Medicaid “a huge relief.”
A life without medical care or even just delayed care would mean “years of worsening pain, complications and irreversible damage” for her.
“The life of not having to worry about how I was going to afford treatment such as medication and appointments relieved me of so much stress, which I truly believe benefited my physical health,” Sanese said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic rolled in, she lost her job and faced much uncertainty, except when it came to her health care.
As a communications associate for Groundwork Ohio, she now has insurance provided by her employer, but the fact that she had the safety net of Medicaid when she needed it “quite literally saved my life.”
As part of her work, she helped advocate against the changes to Medicaid, in part by sharing her Medicaid story.
“No one should have to choose between going to the doctor or paying their rent for the month,” she wrote on Groundwork’s website as part of a call-to-action urging Ohioans to fight against the changes.
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[1] Url:
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/07/09/as-trump-and-republicans-make-1-trillion-in-cuts-ohioans-on-medicaid-say-coverage-is-life-saving/
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