COLUMBUS — The Ohio House on Thursday handed Gov. John Kasich the first veto overrides of his administration, but it made no attempt to undo his veto of a budget provision to freeze enrollment in the Medicaid expansion he has championed.

The debate now moves to the Senate, which is tentatively set to return to Columbus on July 18.

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The governor offered this warning: “If you break it, you own it.”

Although the enrollment freeze did not survive, Mr. Kasich’s administration warned the Medicaid programs still could be underfunded by as much as $1.4 billion during the next two years because of decisions made in this budget.

It also contends that some of the overrides approved Thursday, such as one raising nursing home reimbursement rates, would tie the administration’s hands in dealing with that shortfall and could trigger corresponding rate cuts to hospitals and other service providers.

“I applaud those legislators and all who held off a misguided push to strip health care from hundreds of thousands of Ohioans — for now,” Mr. Kasich said. “However, risks remain.

“A number of the actions taken by the House today threaten health-care access for vulnerable Ohioans, including seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and children, as well as Ohio’s hard-won budget stability. When these actions begin to impact health-care access for Ohioans, those who supported them will bear responsibility.”

Mr. Kasich exercised his line-item veto authority 47 times last week before signing the $65 billion, two-year budget into law, and the chamber overrode 11 of them. In some cases not involving Medicaid restrictions, Democrats joined majority Republicans in voting to override.

One of those bipartisan overrides could give counties and some public transit authorities six more years to prepare for the loss of more than $200 million a year in revenue from a now defunct tax.

Other overrides affected Medicaid reimbursement rates for service providers, attempted to rein in Medicaid costs, and limited the power of the quasi-legislative Ohio Controlling Board.

The controlling board provisions are direct responses to Mr. Kasich’s use of the board in late 2013 to use the panel to draw down billions in federal dollars to launch the Medicaid expansion over the objections of many in his own party.

But the most controversial Kasich veto will stand, at least for now. That provision would have required his administration to seek federal permission to freeze enrollment into the Medicaid expansion beginning on July 1, 2018.

The Affordable Care Act currently pays 95 percent of the tab for the expansion population, which serves largely working adults without dependent children who earn up to 38 percent above the federal poverty level.

If the federal waiver were granted, anyone in the program as of July 1, 2018, would continue to be covered. But, with the exception of the mentally ill and addicted, no one else could enter after that date. Anyone who drops off because of eligibility issues would have been able to later re-enroll if circumstances change.

The expansion currently serves about 725,000 mostly working adults without dependent children.

House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger (R., Clarksville) left the door open to revisit the issue in September. There is no firm deadline for action other than the end of the legislative session nearly a year and a half from now.

He insisted he had the 60 votes for an override if he had opted to bring it to a vote.

“At this juncture, we want to give the summer to let the federal government see if they’re going to come to a conclusion in Congress before we take action moving forward with the freeze waiver request,” he said.

Tim Keen, Mr. Kasich’s budget director, estimated the Medicaid funding shortfalls at $600 million and $800 million over the next two years.

The chamber voted 87-10 to override the governor’s veto of the General Assembly’s revenue fix for counties and certain public transit authorities. The sole negative vote from northwest Ohio belonged to Rep. Derek Merrin (R., Monclova Township).

“I agreed with [the National Federation of Independent Business] and Ohio Chamber of Commerce that increasing the franchise fee will make health insurance plans more expensive and have a negative impact on economic growth in Ohio,” he said.

The federal government nixed the state’s gimmick of using a sales tax on managed-care organizations paid by Medicaid to raise state dollars that were, in turn, leveraged to draw down greater federal funds to spend on Medicaid.

The Kasich administration has replaced the tax with a new federally approved franchise fee on all managed-care companies, Medicaid and otherwise. That 5.8 percent tax will take care of the state’s $500 million-a-year revenue problem, but it’s not a permanent solution for counties and transit authorities that received about $200 million a year from their piggyback sales taxes on those companies.

The General Assembly added a provision to the budget to require the administration to seek federal permission to raise the amount of the fee to 7.2 percent for six years to compensate the local entities. The Kasich administration had planned to provide partial replacement of the money for just two years.

“They have enjoyed the revenue for six years,” Rep. Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati) said. “They should enjoy the revenue for another six years. ... They will not get a full replacement ... but they will get substantial reimbursement if our request to the federal government is granted.

“... We depend on them to provide local jails, the court system, the probation system, the job and family service system, the child support system, the indigent defense system. We cannot leave our partners in the dust.”

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

First Published July 6, 2017, 2:58 p.m.