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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.

Report: MO Kids to Benefit from Voter-Supported Medicaid Expansion

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Monday, March 15, 2021   

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Voters in Missouri passed a ballot initiative last fall expanding Medicaid, and the state is on track to receive more than $1 billion to help implement it.

The newly-passed COVID relief bill allocates federal dollars for all 12 states, including Missouri, that haven't yet implemented expansion, as a temporary incentive.

That's in addition to the Affordable Care Act's existing, permanent incentives.

Lindsey Baker, research director for the Missouri Budget Project, said expansion will help families, especially those with children, avoid the economic strain of being uninsured.

"Medicaid expansion is so key to the health, not just of those parents who are getting care, but it's also critically important to families as a whole and really, to the health of communities more broadly," Baker asserted.

A report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families found states that have expanded their Medicaid programs have lower rates of uninsured children.

In 2019, 6.5% of Missouri kids were uninsured, a number that most likely has increased during the pandemic.

The report pointed out families in Missouri fall into what experts call the "coverage gap." Their income is too high to qualify under the state Medicaid limits, but too low to qualify for marketplace insurance plans they can afford.

Baker noted Missouri's income limit for a family of three to qualify for Medicaid is roughly $380 per month.

"That's the lowest level that's allowed by federal law," Baker explained. "And one of the third most restrictive eligibilities for parents in the nation."

Medicaid is set to open up for qualifying residents on July 1.

Adam Searing, health-policy research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the report's lead author, said lawmakers in Missouri and the non-expansion states may be hesitant to open up Medicaid, but among voters, it's more clear-cut.

"With Republican voters and with Democratic voters, it really is a bipartisan policy that appeals to a wide range of people," Searing observed.

He added unless more states take advantage of the added expansion incentive, many low-income Americans will continue to lack access to health insurance.

Disclosure: Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and Missouri Budget Project contribute to our fund for reporting on Budget Policy and Priorities, Children's Issues, Health Issues, Livable Wages/Working Families, and Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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