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Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
Changes to Medicaid was one of the biggest issues in the state legislature this session. Almitra Smith takes a closer look at the issues, and the people it affects.
The new Pediatrics Short Stay Unit at Children's Hospital, in Columbia, Missouri is a bright and cheery place. There's a play room that includes books, games, and two video game machines. Fourteen year old Chris Berruz has gotten pretty good at the video games because he has been a regular there for nine years.
Because Chris has a serious condition that requires costly treatments, his health care is paid by Medicaid, the government funded health insurance program.
His mother, Christina Berruz, knows first hand what could happen to him without the regular visits.
The single mother says because she has a job she isn't eligible for Medicaid. But, she says the insurance is more than ten percent of her income which she can't afford. So she goes without.
Berruz's experience makes the Medicaid program an important issue to her. So, when the state legislature this year targeted Medicaid services as a place to cut funding to balance the budget, she was concerned.
At issue was whether the growth of Medicaid should be slowed. There are almost one million people on Medicaid right now. That's almost one in five Missourians. And more people are being added daily.
Republican Representative Chuck Purgason says Missouri should focus on quality, not quantity. He says the very needy are often on waiting lists to get medical services.
As part of a plan to curb growth lawmakers considered a bill that would make Medicaid subject to budgeting limits. It would also reduce eligibility for the Children's Health Insurance Program, create premiums for families over a certain income level, and eliminate adult vision and dental programs altogether.
Republican Representative Jodi Stefanick, the bill's sponsor, called the changes much needed "reasonable limits." She says Medicaid is now serving people who could take care of themselves.
The House voted for the bill, and sent it to the Senate. There various organizations representing the disabled, elderly, children and Medicaid service agencies cried out against it.
At a public hearing only Stefanick spoke in favor of the bill, while Beverly Johnson, of the Missouri Council for the Blind, was one of over thirty people who showed up to speak against it.
The pleas seemed to work. The Senate gutted the bill,and in the end a filibuster by Democratic Senator Ken Jacob killed it altogether.
Representative Stefanick blamed media spin, not the substance of the bill as the cause of the outcome.
The issue of what to do with Medicaid will almost certainly come up next legislative session.
Christina Berruz says she'll be watching closely. She says she hopes legislators look at why more people are being added to Medicaid before they block them from services.
There are lawmakers in both the House and the Senate, Democrat and Republican, who say that changes do need to be made. They say if the program grows to a level the state can't pay for, there is a possibility it could be ended for everyone.
The question lawmakers have to wrestle with then is how big a change to make, who will stay in the program, and who will be kicked off.
From the state Capitol, I'm Almitra Smith.