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Court's Medicaid ruling could leave thousands uninsured

As part yesterday's Supreme Court decision on Obama's health care law, the justices ruled the federal government can't revoke states' Medicaid funding for failing to comply with the law's required Medicaid  expansion. And as Véronique LaCapra reports, that could leave some Missourians without access to health insurance.

Dr. Ed Weisbart chairs the St. Louis chapter of the advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program. He said the Court's decision means the Missouri legislature could decide not to expand Medicaid - and that could leave some low-income Missourians uninsured.

"If the state of Missouri does not act on the power within the Affordable Care Act, we're going to have 260,000 people across our state who will remain uninsured despite the fact that the federal government is standing armed, ready, and willing to pay for it."

Weisbart said without insurance and access to basic health care, people have no choice but to go to the emergency room, which he said drives up costs for everyone.

Véronique LaCapra first caught the radio bug while writing commentaries for NPR affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C. After producing her first audio pieces at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies in N.C., she was hooked! She has done ecological research in the Brazilian Pantanal; regulated pesticides for the Environmental Protection Agency in Arlington, Va.; been a freelance writer and volunteer in South Africa; and contributed radio features to the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. She earned a Ph.D. in ecosystem ecology from the University of California in Santa Barbara, and a B.A. in environmental policy and biology from Cornell. LaCapra grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and in her mother’s home town of Auxerre, France.