Senator Husted Threatens Ohioans’ Health Care as Risky New Medicare Program Puts Seniors at Risk

Senator Husted Threatens Ohioans' Health Care as Risky New Medicare Program Puts Seniors at Risk

September 15, 2025

Columbus, Ohio - Senator Husted is taking heat in Ohio for putting health care for 490,000 Ohioans on the chopping block when he supported the GOP tax bill's Medicaid cuts.

Now, he is missing in action as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid prepare to roll out a risky new Medicare pilot program that will allow algorithms to approve or deny claims. In new reporting from Cleveland.com, experts are sounding the alarm that the pilot program will increase health care delays and coverage denials.

See for yourself:

Cleveland.com: Your doctor says you need pain treatment, but Medicare's AI might disagree

• Ohioans on Medicare who rely on steroid injections to manage pain may have to wait longer for treatment next year while an AI program approves or declines care.

• That's because claims for this and several types of health care will need prior approval when submitted to traditional Medicare - a change from the current policy- under an upcoming pilot program aimed at curbing waste, fraud and abuse.

• Ohio, along with five other states, is part of the pilot program called the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.

• Physicians and patient rights groups also are critical of the program, predicting it will restrict and delay necessary care for the elderly, and concerned about its use of AI to make prior authorization decisions.

• "It will save money at the cost of the patients," said Charlotte Rudolph, executive director of Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio, an affordable health care advocacy organization. "Patients on Medicare are some of our most vulnerable Ohioans, and just the thought of them getting wind of this procedure - that's undue stress that patients don't even need to hear."

• Judith Stein, founder of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, agreed.

• "It creates a barrier between what physicians and other healthcare providers order and want as medically necessary for their patients and what can be provided based on algorithms," Stein said. The Center for Medicare Advocacy works to ensure access to Medicare coverage, health equity, and quality health care for older people.
  
• Critics of the Medicare pilot program point out that the AI companies overseeing the initiative will receive a share of the savings generated by denied claims, giving the companies incentive to deny as many claims as possible.

Cleveland.com: A ' big beautiful' whopper of a lie: Ben Stein

• Legislators who voted for the bill are shouting from the rooftops that they didn't choose to cut Medicaid, jeopardize rural hospitals and increase the national debt - all to pay for more tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthiest households.

• The story they tell about this "big beautiful bill" is so thin that it insults the intelligence of every Ohioan who hears it.

• The ugly truth is that they have signed off on the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history. To do so, they rolled back decades of progress toward a healthier, more economically stable future.

• If you are among the 1 percent of Ohio taxpayers with annual income over $754,000 - a group for whom the bill cut taxes by an average of $61,000 a year - this bill serves you well.

• In the bill's decade-long shadow, an estimated 438,000 Ohioans will become uninsured by 2034 because of the megabill and legislators' choice to allow ACA enhanced premium tax credits to expire.

• The bill will especially harm Ohioans who rely on or work at rural hospitals.

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