Ramaswamy Outlines Medicaid Cuts to Help End Ohio Income Tax

Ramaswamy says tackling Medicaid fraud is key to making Ohio a zero income tax state.

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Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the original figures behind the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) movement, said eliminating Ohio’s state income tax will require significant reductions in government waste and a renewed focus on core responsibilities.

Ramaswamy argued that achieving the goal of making Ohio a zero income tax state would “require a government that doesn’t spend money on unnecessary things, but actually focuses on the few things the state needs to be doing well, like infrastructure and building highways,” adding that there is a “lot of waste, a lot of fraud, a lot of abuse that we have to wring out of the system.”

He said state officials must closely examine government spending to identify and eliminate fraud, pointing to Ohio’s Medicaid budget as one of the biggest areas of concern.

“So if I want to get our state to zero income tax, like Texas, like Florida, like Tennessee, then the truth is that we got to take a hard look at where that money is going. And right now, one of the biggest line items in our state budget, actually the biggest line item, is the Medicaid budget, where there is rampant — I believe rampant — at least 10 percent waste, fraud, and abuse,” he said, adding that he intends to “prosecute” that “aggressively.”

Ramaswamy noted that Medicaid spending in Ohio has increased dramatically over the past decade despite enrollment remaining relatively unchanged.

“Medicaid spending in this state went from 27 billion in total dollars to 47 billion over the last decade, and yet enrollment has been effectively flat. If you look at those numbers, at least 10 percent of that good independent statistics say that there’s waste, fraud, and abuse,” he said.

He added that his plan would target fraudulent spending by “take the money from the people who shouldn’t be getting it, from the bad guys, and putting it in the pockets of law-abiding citizens to bring down healthcare costs, increase wealth, and also rein in the unnecessary overspending that’s really paid for by our taxpayers and our citizens.”