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Mo. lawmakers rework budget, discuss fate of blind pension fund

A reworked Senate budget proposal includes preserved funding for a pension program for the blind.
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A reworked Senate budget proposal includes preserved funding for a pension program for the blind.

Budget writers in the Missouri Senate have crafted a proposal designed to preserve funding for blind pensions.

The plan announced by Senate Appropriations Chair Kurt Schaefer would use 18 million in federal Medicaid dollars to create a new blind pension health care fund.

“We’re going to add language that everyone in that program has to go through Medicaid eligibility, so that we determine who is Medicaid eligible and who’s not…that’s the first threshold…the second is we’re going to put in language to establish a premium,” Schaefer said.

Blind recipients deemed non-Medicaid eligible would still be covered, but would have to pay monthly premiums of around 111 dollars, make co-pays and would have to meet an annual 600-dollar deductible. 

Schaefer says those additions would generate the remaining 10 million dollars to keep the blind pension program fully funded. 

The Missouri House has proposed eliminating the program and diverting its 28-million-dollar budget to Higher Education.

Missouri Public Radio State House Reporter Marshall Griffin is a proud alumnus of the University of Mississippi (a.k.a., Ole Miss), and has been in radio for over 20 years, starting out as a deejay. His big break in news came when the first President Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989. Marshall was working the graveyard shift at a rock station, and began ripping news bulletins off the old AP teletype and reading updates between songs. From there on, his radio career turned toward news reporting and anchoring. In 1999, he became the capital bureau chief for Florida's Radio Networks, and in 2003 he became News Director at WFSU-FM/Florida Public Radio. During his time in Tallahassee he covered seven legislative sessions, Governor Jeb Bush's administration, four hurricanes, the Terri Schiavo saga, and the 2000 presidential recount. Before coming to Missouri, he enjoyed a brief stint in the Blue Ridge Mountains, reporting and anchoring for WWNC-AM in Asheville, North Carolina. Marshall lives in Jefferson City with his wife, Julie, their dogs, Max and Mason, and their cat, Honey.