Tagged: medicaid expansion

Some supporters of a Medicaid expansion championed by President Barack Obama are also embracing a Republican alternative put forth in the Missouri House.

Missouri's Republican-led committees have repeatedly defeated the Medicaid expansion backed by Obama and Democrats.

Rep. Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) is proposing the Republican alternative of the expansion. Among the witnesses testifying for Barnes’ plan in a House committee Monday were people who have stood by Democrats in recent weeks as they embraced a proposed Medicaid expansion for lower-income adults. 

Spring break has arrived for Missouri lawmakers, as they take a week off before returning to Jefferson City on March 25th.

They’ll have plenty of items on their plate when they get back -- among the House’s priorities is debating and voting on the state budget, which still does not include Medicaid expansion. Speaker Tim Jones (R, Eureka) says the federal health care law does not require states to add more people to the Medicaid rolls.

A Republican-led Missouri Senate committee has defeated a plan to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care law.

The Senate Appropriations Committee rejected the legislation on a party-line vote Wednesday, just minutes after hearing testimony from more than two dozen witnesses in favor of the plan.

A Republican-led House committee defeated a similar bill last month in the same fashion.

On this week's Health and Wealth Update, the first part of a discussion about health literacy and the healthcare reform. 

The St. Louis-based nonprofit, nonpartisan group Missouri Foundation for Health held a community forum in Columbia at the ARC Monday night about the state’s Medicaid expansion debate. The foundation’s director for health policy Ryan Barker presented the pros and cons of the expansion to an audience of about 45 people, before opening up the floor to questions.