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Tagged: health and wealth

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Health & Wealth Update
1:51 pm
Wed August 1, 2012

Payday loans, minimum wage and cigarette tax one step closer to voters

Credit Jacob Fenston / KBIA
Canvassing in Columbia, earlier this year.

Initiatives that would cap payday loan interest rates, raise the Missouri minimum wage, and raise the state's tobacco tax are a step closer to the November ballot, after a Missouri Supreme Court ruling yesterday. The three initiatives were tied up for months in court – one judge struck down the payday petition, ruling the ballot summary was "likely to deceive petition signers." But yesterday, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld all three ballot summaries.

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Health & Wealth Update
11:33 am
Wed July 11, 2012

Half a million Missourians to gain insurance under health care law

In Missouri, an estimated 835,000 people don't have health insurance – that's about 14 percent of the state's population. But in the next couple of years, that figure is going to change. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld most of the federal health care law, about half a million Missourians will join the rolls of the insured – either through Medicaid, the private insurance market, or with the help of subsidies provided by the federal government. The percentage of uninsured will drop to five percent of the population.

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Health & Wealth Update
7:05 am
Wed July 4, 2012

Missouri Medicaid expansion up in the air

Credit whitehouse.gov
"A victory for people all over this country whose lives will be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold it."

After last week's Supreme Court decision upholding most of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama declared victory. But there was one major gray cloud -- or silver lining, depending on your point of view -- leaving open the question of Missouri's participation in the expansion of Medicaid envisioned by the federal health care law.

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Health & Wealth Update
10:28 am
Wed June 13, 2012

Missouri's meth addiction, part two

Credit KOMU News / Flikr

In 2011, Missouri law enforcement busted about five meth labs each day on average – almost double the number of any other state. The state spends more than $2 million dollars a year on cleanup of these labs, and millions more on incarceration, child care, and drug treatment.

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Health & Wealth Update
10:37 am
Wed June 6, 2012

Missouri's meth addiction, part one

Credit Leah Shafer / Flikr

For the past decade, Missouri has claimed the dubious distinction of the most meth busts of any state in the nation. In this week's Health & Wealth update, reporter Kyle Deas has the first in a two-part-series on Missouri's unique meth addiction.

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