Ohio House committee seeks to block Medicaid access
Blog | November 4, 2025
Abortion Forward Deputy Director Jaime Miracle testifies before the Ohio House Medicaid Committee on November 4, 2025 against House Bill 410.
Jaime Miracle, Deputy Director
House Medicaid Committee
Testimony in Opposition to HB 410
November 4, 2025
Chair Gross, Vice Chair Barhorst, Ranking Member Baker, and members of the House Medicaid Committee, I come before you today in strong opposition House Bill 410, a bill which would block tens of thousands of Ohioans from accessing their preferred healthcare provider. My name is Jaime Miracle, and I am the deputy director for Abortion Forward, formerly Pro-Choice Ohio.
As I stand before this committee at yet another hearing on yet another unconstitutional bill attacking abortion access and the medical professionals who provide abortion care. A hearing that was announced just 30 hours ago, giving people only six hours to re-arrange their lives, write testimony, and make travel plans to come before you to provide testimony and make their voices heard. Some of those people did all of that just to hear the next morning that even though they followed every rule their testimony would STILL not be accepted because the chair had decided to limit testimony to just five people today – a rule announced after the fact to silence their voices.
Today is Election Day. By scheduling this committee at a time when many Ohioans are in their community voting or otherwise engaged in their local election, giving people such a short turnaround time to submit testimony and THEN calling them to tell them that an arbitrary rule created on a whim meant that their testimony would not be allowed to be heard, this committee is showing just how little it cares about democracy. May I remind you that you are sent here to represent the people, not rule us. Ohioans deserve better.
On another Election Day, this one in November 2023, voters overwhelmingly passed the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment to enshrine the right to abortion and other reproductive healthcare services into the Ohio Constitution. Just two years later it seems this body has forgotten what the voters passed. The Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 22 now reads, in part,
Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception; fertility treatment; continuing one’s own pregnancy; miscarriage care; and abortion. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either: an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right.
HB 410 is limiting access to Medicaid reimbursements for “a person or entity that assists an individual” in obtaining constitutionally protected abortion services and therefore clearly unconstitutionally discriminates against these entities because they also provide abortion services.
Ohio already bans Medicaid and other public funds from being used for abortion care except for three narrow exceptions for rape, incest, or risk to life of the pregnant person (ORC 9.04). This ban already blocks people on Medicaid from accessing the abortion care they need. Now, HB 410 proposes to expand that ban to all healthcare services if the provider of that healthcare also provides abortion care. This new expansion of Ohio’s Medicaid ban will leave tens of thousands of Ohioans without access to the preventive care and other services they and their families need to live healthy lives.
We all hear every day about how Ohioans are being squeezed by the rising costs of housing, food, and the basic needs of their families. HB 410 will just add to the financial disaster being experienced by our friends and neighbors. It is wrong to force people to choose between continuing care with a trusted provider but having to pay out of pocket for that care, something they cannot afford, or switching away from their trusted provider so they can still use their Medicaid coverage.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio operates eight health care centers in designated Primary Care Health Care Shortage areas. What does that mean? If HB 410 is enacted, their patients will have nowhere else to go. There are already not enough providers to serve people in these shortage areas, and now this committee is hearing a bill that will further limit access to health care providers.
Ohio continues to be in a maternal and infant health care crisis. Our infant mortality rate is still higher than the national average, and Ohio rakes 43rd in the country. Our maternal mortality rate is also higher than the national average, with Ohio raking 22nd in the country. Our infant mortality rate for Black individuals is nearly two times the state rate, and 2.5 times higher than the rate for white Ohioans.1
Why is this committee trying to limit access to healthcare at a time where we should be looking everywhere for solutions to increase access to care?
As I close today, I’d like to remind you of the oath you pledged as you took office earlier this year. “I do solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and faithfully to discharge and perform all duties incumbent upon me as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives according to the best of my ability and understanding…”
If this clearly unconstitutional bill and a hearing designed to silence the people’s voices at every turn is the best the people of Ohio can expect from their representatives, I urge you to do better, to try harder. The people of Ohio deserve leaders who truly lead, not ones who placate their political base, silence the voices of their opponents, and ignore the constitution they swore to uphold.
