medicaid expansion

As Missouri's Medicaid awaits reform, health centers continue to serve uninsured

Harum Helmy — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:17:36 +0000

This week on KBIA’s talk show Intersection, host Ryan Famuliner sat down with State Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia), Rep. Caleb Rowden (R-Columbia) and Rep. Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) to discuss the legislative session that ended on Friday. One of the main things on the show’s agenda was, of course, Medicaid expansion – or lack thereof.

Famuliner asked the panelists why the expansion failed to pass.

Interfaith leaders gather for last-minute support of Medicaid expansion [video]

Harum Helmy — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:53:33 +0000

With the Missouri legislative session ending on Friday and a Republican supermajority that still won't budge, the hope to expand Medicaid in Missouri is pretty much dead for FY 2014.

It's so dead that perhaps the only thing that could bring it back to life is, well, interfaith prayers for a miracle.

Rural Reads: Redneck reality, Obama's budget and critical access hospitals

Harum Helmy — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:21:21 +0000

Every Friday, KBIA's Health & Wealth Desk talks about the week's most interesting articles and reports on rural health, wealth and society issues.

'Redneck reality' and rural portrayal in cable television

Entertainment newspaper The A.V. Club muses on A&E's popular reality show Duck Dynasty, saying the show is the 21st century incarnation of old rural-themed sitcoms that once dominated network television. Think Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hee-Haw. It's an interesting read, but we were especially interested with the author's take on ways the television shows have to negotiate the rural-urban political disparities.

While the rural-themed programming of days gone by tended to depict the small Southern town as a bucolic haven for good-hearted folk, redneck reality is more apt to acknowledge the social and economic ills of the subcultures it depicts. These shows are sanitized for the protection of viewers with blue-state sensibilities; when they occur at all, political discussions tend to center on generalized platitudes about freedom and family, rather than specifics that might turn off half the potential audience.

H/T: The Rural Blog.

Did headlines about death rates at rural hospitals tell the wrong story?
The Daily Yonder is killing it with their opinion pieces this week.

Case in point: A new report made headlines last week, saying death rates are rising at rural, geographically isolated hospitals. But an opinion writer for the Yonder says news reports are not telling the real story of these so-called critical access hospitals:

The patients in the small rural hospital with heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia have become a select population. A large proportion has decided that they are through paying all the human costs of the miracles of modern medicine. They have made the decision to stay in familiar surroundings near home and family.
The researchers found that 13.3% of the patients at critical access hospitals with one of the three conditions died, compared to 11.4 % of the medical center patients. Given all the terrible tools that modern medical centers have to work with, I’m amazed they only manage a small difference in patient survival over the most basic, little country hospitals in America.

Obama's proposed delay in cuts could cool off MO medicaid expansion debate

Harum Helmy — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:58:01 +0000

In his proposed budget, President Barack Obama wants to delay cuts to federal payments to hospitals, keeping the payments intact for an extra year. That could affect the debate over expanding Medicaid in Missouri.

Through what’s called the disproportionate share hospital payments or DSH payments, the federal government gives money to hospitals that provide a lot of free care to patients who are uninsured and can’t afford services. The Affordable Care Act, though, includes significant cuts to DSH payments.

Why rural Missouri hospitals are rooting for Medicaid expansion

Harum Helmy and Jennifer Davidson — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:37:55 +0000

The uphill congressional battle to expand Medicaid in Missouri is making rural hospitals that serve areas with high poverty levels really, really nervous. KSMU's Jennifer Davidson has the story.

Nixon open to GOP-backed Medicaid plan, but with changes

Marshall Griffin — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:39:45 +0000

Governor Jay Nixon says he could support the House Republicans’ alternate Medicaid proposal, but only if some crucial changes are made. He met with the GOP caucus today to discuss his Medicaid expansion proposal and their plans to reform the system. Nixon told reporters that any proposal still needs to expand Medicaid to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Analysis: Mo. Medicaid debate gets hyperbolic

Associated Press — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:25:16 +0000

If Missouri expands Medicaid health coverage for lower-income adults, could it create a crisis for public schools?

If Missouri fails to expand Medicaid, could it result in millions of Missourians' tax dollars going to health care in other states?

Both claims have been made at the Missouri Capitol by opponents and supporters of a proposed Medicaid expansion. But the claims might be exaggerated.

Mo. House passes $25B budget without Medicaid plan

Associated Press — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:45:46 +0000

The Missouri House has passed a nearly $25 billion budget that would fund modest increases for public education, but not the Medicaid expansion sought by Gov. Jay Nixon.

Will Missouri's GOP-backed Medicaid expansion get federal approval?

Harum Helmy — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:46:52 +0000

Missouri’s Republican-led House on Tuesday struck down Democrats’ attempts to include Medicaid expansion in the state’s budget.

If that scenario sounds familiar to you, it’s because these rejections have happened a few times before. On Feb. 25, two House committees rejected Rep. Jake Hummel’s (D-St. Louis) bill to expand Medicaid under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. On March 14, the Senate Appropriations committee voted down the Senate Democrats’ version of the expansion bill.

Rep. Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) was in one of the committees that struck down Rep. Hummel's Medicaid expansion proposal. Barnes has since introduced his own version of the expansion -- outlined in House Bill 700.

Mo. House defeats Medicaid expansion effort

Associated Press — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:00:48 +0000

The Missouri House has rejected another Democratic effort to add a Medicaid expansion to the state budget.

The House opened debate Tuesday on the state's 2014 budget by defeating an effort to send the budget back to a committee in hopes of adding more than $900 million of federal funds to expand Medicaid for low-income adults.

The defeat of Tuesday's motion was almost a foregone conclusion in the Republican-led House, because the House Budget Committee had previously rejected the Medicaid expansion.