Dayton student backs Medicaid in trip to Washington, D.C.

Ohio children’s hospitals say cuts could impact care for kids.

Jordan Ivy of Dayton was born 23 weeks premature and weighed just a pound and a half. His mother, Theresa Crawford, was told by his doctors to prepare for the worst.

At that point, they’d tried to get him to breathe for 30 minutes, with no success.

“I asked them please to continue,” his mother remembered Wednesday as she met with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. “God didn’t bring him this far to take him away.”

Jordan, now 13, was one of a handful of Ohio children — all patients at Ohio children’s hospitals — who flooded Capitol Hill Wednesday to advocate for Congress to continue funding Medicaid.

They did so at a particularly interesting time: The Senate is expected to unveil the latest version of its health care legislation this week and Senate Republicans hope to vote on it next week.

For Jordan, who is covered by Medicaid, the legislation is particularly crucial. Children’s hospitals worry that a proposal to move Medicaid toward a block grant program would have a huge impact on children who rely on Medicaid to pay for their care.

A bill that passed the House in May capped Medicaid funding. Nationwide, some 30 million children rely on Medicaid coverage, including 2 million with conditions like Jordan’s.

According to the Children’s Hospital Association, the first version of the Senate health bill would cut some $43 billion over 10 years in Medicaid spending for more than 30 million enrolled children. Spending for some children with disabilities, however, would be exempt from the cap.

Vickie Giambrone, a consultant for Dayton Children’s Hospital where Jordan has been a frequent visitor because of his ongoing condition, said the cuts would disproportionately hit children because so many are covered by the federal program.

“Most people think Medicaid as a program for the aging, blind and disabled,” she said. “But the largest pool covered by Medicaid are kids — poor kids, and kids with disabilities,” Giambrone said.

Among the issues Jordan faces are Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, a chronic lung disease common in premature infants who were born with undeveloped lungs, and Cerebral Palsy, a condition that affects muscle tone, movement and motor skills.

But what most stands out about Jordan, who will be an eighth grader at Stivers School for the Arts this fall, is his personality.

Given the opportunity to meet other kids representing children’s hospitals Wednesday, he eagerly handed them a baseball card describing his history and interests. He jokingly yelled, “Ow,” when shaking a hand. And when he met Brown, he was quick to tell him that he was a teenager now.

“This is the first time I’ve sat next to a senator,” he said.

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