About a week after the White House spread misinformation about Ohio’s Medicaid program, Vice President Mike Pence falsely said Friday that 60,000 Ohioans are going without care because of the state’s Medicaid expansion.

“I know Gov. (John) Kasich isn’t with us, but I suspect that he’s very troubled to know that in Ohio alone, nearly 60,000 disabled citizens are stuck on waiting lists, leaving them without the care they need for months or even years,” Pence asserted at the National Governors Association gathering Friday in Providence, Rhode Island.

That prompted Kasich’s press secretary, Jon Keeling, to tweet: “That’s what we call #fakenews.” Keeling included a link to The Dispatch’s Capital Insider column from last Sunday citing state Medicaid data to refute an article cited by the White House. In what “the West Wing is reading,” the inaccurate piece said that after expanding Medicaid, Ohio “rolled back eligibility for some 34,000 seniors and individuals with disabilities as a cost-cutting measure.”

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Medicaid officials also said there was no truth to a separate claim about recipients of Ohio’s Medicaid expansion “being put ahead of 60,000 disabled Ohioans who rely on Medicaid but are currently on a waiting list.”

Pence’s remarks came in the context of criticizing Obamacare, which allowed states to expand Medicaid. More than 700,000 poor adult Ohioans gained health-care coverage, with the federal government picking up virtually all of the tab.

“Obamacare has put far too many able-bodied adults on the Medicaid rolls, leaving many disabled and vulnerable Americans at the back of the line. It’s true, and it’s heartbreaking,” the former Indiana governor said, according to a transcript provided by the White House

Shortly after a transcript of Pence’s speech became public, Kasich’s communications department tweeted, “The claim is not accurate. It’s been fact checked twice.”

Pence spokesman Marc Lotter said the vice president’s source was a Wall Street Journal editorial July 7 slamming Kasich, even questioning whether he was still a Republican because of his stance on Medicaid. The editorial said, “Nearly 60,000 disabled Ohioans are on waiting lists that last for months or years to receive supplemental state services.”

Those Ohioans, however, are on a list seeking Medicaid waivers, mostly for home- and community-based services for the developmentally disabled. The number of people who can be served via the waivers is restricted, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act Participatory Action Research Consortium.

Medicaid expansion opponents, such as state Rep. Wes Goodman, R-Cardington, contend that “every state share (of a) Medicaid dollar spent on expansion population is not used for the truly needy on the waiting list.” He and others cited the Kaiser Family Foundation, which confirmed about 60,000 on Ohio’s list seeking Medicaid waivers.

But Kaiser itself analyzed the data and concluded “there does not appear to be a relationship between a state’s Medicaid expansion status and changes in its ... waiver waiting list.” Kaiser noted that about 40 percent did not qualify for a waiver when they signed up for one, while as many as 90 percent of those with certain types of disabilities already are getting some form of non-waiver Medicaid help.

The foundation also learned that waiting lists in non-expansion states are often longer than those in expansion states.

Keeling said, “To be clear, there is zero connection between those asking for support services and Medicaid expansion. In fact, after we expanded, the governor signed into law the largest investment in the system for the developmentally disabled in the history of the program — $286 million. To say Medicaid expansion had a negative impact on the (developmental disabilities) system is false, as it is just the opposite of what actually happened.”