Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and his family attend the Governor’s Inaugural Gala on January 7, 2023, in the Statehouse Atrium in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association pool).
Republican United States Senator from Ohio Jon Husted raised at least $75,000 in campaign contributions from Centene, the largest Medicaid managed care provider in the United States. Of this, over $29,000 went to the company paid $88.3 million to resolve allegations that he fraudulently collected tens of millions from Ohio Medicaid.
Meanwhile, Husted has repeatedly voted against expanding subsidies to 600,000 Ohioans whose health insurance coverage is skyrocketing. One of the reasons he gave is fraudulent activity on the program during the coronavirus pandemic.
When Centene paid the settlement, then-Lt. Governor Husted was part of the administration responsible for the program that was allegedly defrauded.
The Husted administration and Gov. Mike DeWine suspended contract negotiations with Centene for several months in 2021. But taxpayer money flowed in again after Centene hired an elderly friend of DeWine’s to lobby officials on its behalf.
Husted’s office did not respond to questions for this story, including whether he believed fighting fraud was critical.
DeWine nominated Husted to the U.S. Senate in early 2025 after spending six years in an administration characterized by one of the biggest corruption scandals in Ohio history.
Catherine Turcer, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause Ohio, said it was disturbing that Husted accepted immense donations from a company that paid millions to settle allegations of massive fraud against Ohio taxpayers.
“We expect our elected officials to turn their backs on donors who have committed fraud,” she said. “We expect them to walk away and reject it. One way they can do that is by refusing to make campaign contributions.”
Tax cuts for the prosperous, but no health care subsidies for the humble
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Last summer, Husted voted for President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which would cut more than $1 trillion over 10 years from spending on Medicaid and federal food aid for the needy. At the same time, it extended the Trump tax cuts through 2017, providing windfall gain of $1 trillion for the richest 1% of Americans and increasing the national debt by $4.1 trillion.
But while Husted voted to expand tax cuts aimed primarily at the wealthy, he repeatedly voted against extending through 2021 subsidies for 600,000 moderate-income Ohioans to purchase health insurance in the marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act. About 70% people on the ACA exchanges meet 250% or less of the federal poverty guidelines. For a family of four it is approx $80,375 per year.
Before the subsidies expired at the end of 2025, experts predicted that premiums would more than double on average after they expired.
Now that they have expired, it seems so. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that recruitment had already started across the country decreased by 1.4 million.
That’s about 6% of the 24.2 million Americans covered by the program. Experts told the newspaper that if the subsidies are not reimplemented, that number will likely escalate, and many people who stop using the ACA marketplace will no longer be insured.
After a 43-day government shutdown as a result of the subsidy fight, in November Husted in the Senate proposed freezing the amount spent on subsidies, adding more restrictions and extending them, but only for two years.
He also proposed that everyone should pay something, no matter how needy they were. He said it would put an end to a fraud problem that the Commonwealth Fund said was already occurring largely establishedwhile proposing further steps that will not include providing wages to the poorest.
Ohio Medicaid Fraud
Concerns about fraud were alleviated in 2021 when the administration that Husted was part of decided to resume working with Centene. The company owns Buckeye Community Health Plan, one of the Medicaid managed care providers that administered most of the health services $28 billion the department spent this year.
Managed care providers act like insurers in many ways – with the main difference being that taxpayers foot the bill. They register clients, create supplier networks and pay compensation.
They also work with pharmacy intermediaries, known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. These companies decide which drugs are covered, negotiate murky discounts with drugmakers and decide how much they reimburse the pharmacies that buy and dispense them.
In 2017, when DeWine was still Ohio’s attorney general and Husted was secretary of state, two PBMs charged taxpayers much more for drugs than they reimbursed pharmacists.
A 2018 audit of an murky system found that PBMs — which are partly health conglomerates CVS Health and UnitedHealth — had brought charges against the state $224 million more for drugs in 2017 than they paid Ohio pharmacists, who were already closing their doors alarming pace.
Buckeye Community Health Plan, owned by Centene, added its own PBM to transactions that were already going through CVS PBM. In 2017, Centene billed taxpayers an additional $20 million.
Centene denied that a double dip occurred – even though CVS did no unique services provided by Centene PBM can be identified.
Despite the denials, recent Attorney General Dave Yost launched an investigation in 2019 and filed a lawsuit in 2021.
Just three months later, Centene settled with the state for $88.3 million. She pleaded not guilty, but also announced that she was reversing the decision over $1 billion settle similar claims with more than 20 other states that didn’t even sue him.
“Centene used sophisticated moves to tax unearned dollars — moves known only at the highest levels of health care companies,” Yost said in written declaration announcing the settlement. “My team has put a lot of effort into unraveling this pattern, and now that we know how it works, it should raise alarm bells for anyone using similar tactics.”
Large contributions
Husted has been a longtime opponent of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, former President Barack Obama’s signature bill.
“I wasn’t in Congress when Democrats created the broken ACA or the Biden (health care) subsidies….” he said last month.
Despite Husted’s criticism, his proponent Centene owes its enormous size and much of its current identity to the ACA.
Its annual revenue in 2010 was just $4.45 billion. It’s a number skyrocketed to $163 billion in 2024primarily through the provision of Medicaid managed care.
Throughout it all, he has supported Husted’s political career with donations, contributing $75,000 to his campaigns over the past two decades.
Common Cause’s Turcer said people and companies don’t make such immense donations solely in the name of good government.
“When you look at why someone gives $50 to a candidate, it’s probably because they really like the candidate,” she said. “But when you start making thousands of dollars, these people want something. They want politics, they want to develop relationships so they can get their phones back quickly. They make these larger contributions to grease the wheels.”
In early 2021, as Yost was investigating Centene’s relationship with Ohio Medicaid, the company hired Michael Kiggin, A law school classmate and close associate of DeWine. Kiggin agreed to lobby DeWine, Yost, Husted and the Medicaid department on “Medicaid managed care decisions” on Centene’s behalf.
During the fraud investigation, the Department of Medicaid suspended negotiations for a managed care contract for 2022. However, two months after the settlement was announced, the Department of Medicaid announced that resumption of cooperation with the company — not to mention the fraud allegations.
And while Husted continues to have issues with the Affordable Care Act and fraud in its subsidy program, he has expressed no problem with Centene — a company that has benefited greatly from the ACA and has been credibly accused of defrauding Ohio Medicaid of millions of dollars.
A year ago, DeWine appointed Husted to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by J.D. Vance when he was elevated to vice president.
Since June, Centene executives have had this donated $29,000 According to Federal Election Commission records, Husted is seeking to be elected president in his own right next year.
Meanwhile, the company’s management appears to have made no contribution this cycle to Husted’s likely Democratic challenger, former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.
Turcer said elected officials should not accept political contributions from companies that are credibly accused of defrauding taxpayers.
“If our elected officials do not turn their backs on those who engage in this madness and focus on protecting Ohioans and our wallets, we will all be taken advantage of,” she said.
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