Tagged: medicaid expansion

Medicaid expansion is dead for now in the Missouri House.  Two separate House committees voted down efforts Monday to expand Medicaid to 259,000 Missourians next year and 41,000 more in later years.

Proponents of a Medicaid expansion will get their say at the Missouri Capitol — even if they don't get their way.

A House committee is scheduled to hear testimony Monday on a Democratic proposal to expand eligibility for the Medicaid health care program to an estimated 260,000 additional lower-income adults. The plan has the support of Gov. Jay Nixon and is called for by President Barack Obama's health care law.

But the Republican-led Legislature has generally opposed the Medicaid expansion.

House Democrats are sponsoring legislation to expand Medicaid in Missouri, despite the fact that the state budget filed by Republicans leaves out the proposed expansion.

House Bill 627 would expand Medicaid to an additional 300,000 Missourians, and House Democrats say not passing it would cost the state 5,000 jobs and could force some rural hospitals to close their doors.  Kerry Noble is CEO of Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems in the Missouri Boot-heal.

Missouri has less than 24 hours to decide whether it wants to join with the federal government to set up a health exchange in the state.

Gov. Jay Nixon told U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last November that state law prevents him from moving forward with anything without legislative approval. And, there doesn’t appear to be much traction among state lawmakers.

This week on the show: the Medicaid expansion debate continues. Plus: what Mid-Missourians are concerned about as the President prepares for his State of the Union address.