The Missouri House has rejected another Democratic effort to add a Medicaid expansion to the state budget.
The House opened debate Tuesday on the state's 2014 budget by defeating an effort to send the budget back to a committee in hopes of adding more than $900 million of federal funds to expand Medicaid for low-income adults.
The defeat of Tuesday's motion was almost a foregone conclusion in the Republican-led House, because the House Budget Committee had previously rejected the Medicaid expansion.
Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon was traveling Tuesday to suburbs of Kansas City and St. Louis to build public support for the Medicaid expansion.
The 2010 health care law signed by President Barack Obama calls for a Medicaid expansion, but a Supreme Court ruling last year made it optional for states.
