Committee rejects bill to expand Medicaid eligibility

By Meghan Boggess and Emily Donaldson

(MDN News) -- A Missouri House committee defeated a Democratic-backed measure to expand the state's Medicaid program Monday, Feb. 25, despite an overwhelming number of witnesses voicing their support at the hearing.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jacob Hummel, D-St. Louis, would have provided up to 300,000 more Missourians access to Medicaid. The committee defeated the measure in a 5-2 vote split along party lines.

Hummel said that if the state did not expand Medicaid, it would miss out on the federal funding allocated under the federal health care law.

"These are our dollars that we're sending to Washington that we need to bring back to the states," Hummel said.

Critics, however, argued giving more funding to the program would worsen the program's efficiency.

"Medicaid is a system that right now doesn't work...why are we going to take an additional 300,000 Missourians, and put them into a system that nobody believes works very efficiently to begin?" said Rep. Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff.

But the Medicaid issue may not be dead in the House.

House Government Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, unveiled his own plan, which he called "market-based Medicaid."

The Associated Press reported that Barnes' legislation would expand the income eligibility for adults, possibly adding 180,000 people to the state's Medicaid rolls, but it would not cover all adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which is called for under the federal health care law.

The AP also reported that the bill cut eligibility for children by putting them on the same level as their parents, which would remove about 44,000 children from the rolls.