Toolkit: Countering the Attacks on

Ohio’s Caregivers 


  • MAGA Republicans in Ohio are trying to throw red meat to their base by alleging fraud in Ohio’s Medicaid program – a well-worn tactic to defund public programs in order to enrich their wealthy donors. They are specifically targeting Somali Americans and other immigrants. 

    Far-right blog, the Daily Wire, stirred up the “fraud panic” in Ohio by alleging Somali immigrants are creating fake home health care companies and receiving Medicaid payments for care work families should be doing for free. 

    Although the same people crying fraud have been in charge of the state for more than two decades and have overseen some of Ohio’s biggest public corruption scandals in history (ECOT, First Energy) we must push back to defend public programs, call out racism, and expose the real motivation behind the attacks. 

    Ohio Republicans want to make fraud and a distrust of government a central issue in the midterm elections. They are also trying to ram through legislation that would take away home health care from people who need it and dismantle a program that allows family members to care for disabled loved ones, and introduce troubling new surveillance technology into our medical system.  

    The document below includes three overarching narratives to frame our messaging. (These do not need to be used verbatim in every piece of communications). Adapt for C3/C4 use. We also include sample talking points and dos and don’ts. 

  • (This is the underlying story behind our messaging. Adapt it however works best for you!)

    [VALUES: neighbor/community] Ohioans believe in coming together to care for our neighbors – and using our public resources to serve our families and our communities by funding our schools, parks, libraries, and health care programs. 

    [VILLAIN: Ohio MAGA Republicans/certain politicians]: We should be mad when someone misuses our public dollars. And for more than 20 years, the [extremist politicians/MAGA Republicans] running our state have funneled OUR money away from the public services we all need to benefit the greedy billionaires and corporate CEOs who back them.  Now they’re trying to point the finger at immigrants or people with disabilities –  because they want us looking the other way while they try to seize even more money and power. 

    [VISION: We can all have what we need] In Ohio, we can make sure that when we get sick, our families don't have to decide whether to pay the rent or get us the care we need. Let’s demand our leaders ensure our public dollars are making everyone’s life better – not just the wealthy and powerful few. 


    • Of course we all want our public dollars to be used to serve our families and communities – and we need to take action when they’re not.


    • [MAGA Republicans/certain politicians] have been draining our public dollars to support their billionaire backers for decades and now based on sensational allegations from a far-right blogger they are suddenly acting concerned about the budget to hide their real plan to funnel OUR money away from the services Ohio families need. 


    • [MAGA/Certain] politicians gut our government programs making it harder for all of us to make ends meet, then try to get  us to blame immigrants or people with disabilities – not the billionaires and big CEOs raking in all the profits.


    • [MAGA/extremist politicians] know Ohioans are turning against them because they're ripping away our health care and jacking up prices while corporate CEOs and a handful of billionaires get even richer. 


    • For more than 20 years, the [extremist politicians/MAGA Republicans] running our state have funneled OUR money into schemes like the FirstEnergy scandal that drove up our electric bills, or the ECOT scandal that defunded our schools – but now they want us to blame immigrants and people with disabilities for problems THEY created. 


    • Today we are seeing what happens when wealthy corporations and the politicians they paid for rob us of everything we’ve created to care for each other.


    • Ripping away home based care will cause Ohioans to die – and the politicians behind it know it. 


    • MAGA Republicans are willing to let people die in order to get Vivek and Husted elected.

       

  • [VALUES: Family:] Family means everything to us in Ohio, which is why our state has programs that allow us to care for our children with severe disabilities, an elderly parent who suffered a debilitating stroke, or a sibling who has suffered a traumatic brain injury and can no longer care for themself. These programs allow family members to know they can give their loved ones critical care without having to skip their car payments or utility bills.  

    [VILLAIN: Ohio MAGA Republicans/certain politicians]: None of us want to see these programs misused. But greedy billionaires and the [Republican/MAGA] politicians they back want to keep us sick because it boosts their profits. They’d rather hand over our care to for-profit nursing homes than have us cared for in our homes by our loved ones. 

    [VISION: Care work is work] Ohioans know that caring for a sick or disabled loved one is important work that makes the entire community stronger. We can live in a state where our leaders value that work, and make sure families don’t go broke doing it. 

    • Most of us would rather that our loved ones get the care they need at home rather than locking them away in distant nursing homes. 


    • Home care programs allow Ohioans to care for their family members who need it without going broke - like a child with severe disabilities, an elderly parent who suffered a debilitating stroke, or a sibling who has suffered a traumatic brain injury and can no longer care for themself.


    • It’s not easy to qualify for a home based care  waiver – families must go through a rigorous process to prove they qualify. We have systems in place to find fraudsters and hold them accountable, but not by making it even harder for people to get the care they need.

     

    • Billionaires profit by keeping us sick and stressed and using our public dollars to line their own pockets.


    • MAGA politicians want us to believe that certain people don’t deserve to be cared for because of their race or how much money they have – so they can get us to go along with destroying the programs that make our entire state stronger. 


    • None of us want to see people abusing our programs - but blanket cuts will rip away home care services that allow our aging loved ones and Ohioans with disabilities to remain in their homes.

    • These programs allow family members to know they can give their loved ones critical care without having to skip their car payments or utility bills.  


    • Ripping away home based care will cause Ohioans to die – and the politicians behind it know it. 


    • MAGA Republicans are willing to let people die in order to get Vivek and Husted elected.

  • [VALUES: Privacy] Our medical information is the most private and sensitive data about us, and we deserve  to choose when and how someone gets  access to it. 


    [VILLAIN: Ohio MAGA Republicans/certain politicians]: Today, a group of tech billionaires want to get their hands on our valuable health data. [MAGA Republicans/certain politicians] are using this situation to give it to them. They are trying  to convince us that our health care programs aren’t working to justify giving our sensitive health information to the same private corporations that are driving the data center boom and working with the Trump administration to track immigrants and political opponents. 


    [VISION: quality care we can trust] We don’t need to sacrifice our privacy to get quality care we can trust. Let’s say no to this medical surveillance and the intrusion of the tech bros into our communities and into our private lives.

    • [MAGA Republicans/certain politicians] are in the pocket of big tech billionaires who are turning our farms and forests into data centers – and now they want to come after our medical data too. 


    • No one wants to be tracked – and we especially don’t want politicians and big tech billionaires to get their hands on our medical information. 


    • We all want our systems to run efficiently, but we don’t want our sensitive medical data in the hands of the tech billionaires who are hiking up electricity prices while poisoning our air and water to build data centers. 

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