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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

New Study Shows Negative Ripple of 2005 Medicaid Cuts

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Thursday, March 26, 2009   

Jefferson City, MO - Hospitals and health care centers took a big hit from cuts made to Missouri's Medicaid system in 2005, and a new study by the Missouri Foundation for Health reveals that they've passed the cost of care for the uninsured to local communities and those with private insurance. The report comes as thousands protest the proposed Medicaid budget cuts being considered in the House version of the state budget. House Republicans fear that using federal stimulus money to restore Medicaid would be an ongoing expense for the state after the stimulus money dries up.

Quadriplegic Rich Blakley of the Disabled Citizens Alliance agrees the money will dry up in two years, but assumes the economy will have recovered by then.

"That's what stimulus money is there for in the first place: to patchwork state governments and see them through the tough times until the economy recovers."

Republicans prefer using the stimulus money as a one-time rebate to taxpayers. Advocates for the poor and individuals with developmental disabilities disagree, pleading that the cuts be restored by the Senate.

Blakley says up to 700,000 people are currently uninsured in Missouri. Decent people with medical conditions who want to rise out of poverty are struggling right now, Blakley says, and the government needs to step in and help.

"It's absolutely essential. I implore them to reconsider and provide people the Medicaid that not only they deserve but need just to survive."

If the budget is approved in the House, it will move on to the Senate for debate.

The study is available at www.mffh.org.





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