Missouri House advances bill to undercut Medicaid expansion [View all]

The Missouri House advanced a bill Tuesday that would put Medicaid expansion back on the ballot. The bill proposes a constitutional amendment that, if approved, would give lawmakers the power to refuse to fund the Medicaid expansion group.

Under Medicaid expansion, Missourians making less than $17,700 a year can receive coverage. Since the program started in October, following a Missouri Supreme Court decision, 64,210 Missourians have successfully enrolled. That number represents less than a quarter of those estimated to be eligible.

Rep. Cody Smith, R-Carthage, is the chairman of the House Budget committee who sponsored the bill. Smith led the effort to strip funding for Medicaid expansion from the state budget last spring.

On the house floor Tuesday, Smith explained the amendment would allow legislators to split funding for Medicaid expansion recipients off from the broader program. “This would enable us to kind of uncouple those two parts of the program and appropriate for them independently, and respectively of each other,” Smith said.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/government-politics-issues/2022-02-16/missouri-house-advances-bill-to-undercut-medicaid-expansion