Missouri Governor Jay Nixon continues to push his Medicaid expansion plan.
The governor stopped by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce on Thursday to make his case for increasing Medicaid coverage for 300,000 Missourians.
Governor Nixon characterized the expansion as a “business decision.”
“And the question now before us is a narrow one,” Nixon said. “Will we bring the tax dollars we send to Washington back home to strengthen our Medicaid system here in Missouri or will we let the tax dollars Missourians send to Washington be spent in other states instead?”
Earlier this week, the Cape Girardeau Chamber joined the Missouri Chamber of Commerce in their support of the expansion plan. Tom Meyer is the chamber’s chairman. He calls the expansion an important business decision.
“A lot of people don’t realize the ripple effect that this would have with families that have gone a long time without any type of medical support/ This will give them a chance to work within their family, within their employment, with a security and optimism that will benefit the community as a whole,” Meyer said.
Nixon says it would allow a family of four that earns $32,500 per year to access Medicaid. These are families, he says, that work in jobs that don’t offer insurance and they often don’t get the preventative care or treatment they need.
“As a result they often end up in our hospital emergency rooms. Now that’s a terrible way to delivery healthcare,” Nixon said. “It puts a heavy burden on our doctors, nurses and hospitals. It drives up premiums for individuals and businesses, and quite frankly that must change.”
The Missouri Department of Mental Health estimates 50,000 Missourians that need mental health treatment will gain coverage. That’s why law enforcement officers like New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens is pulling for the Medicaid expansion.
Stevens says law enforcement increasingly deal with people with mental health issues who have not broken the law, but who are instable and in need of mental health attention.
“It’s frustrating for us because we’re cops. We’re not mental health providers. We’re not medical providers. We don’t have facilities set up for these needs. But yet they’re falling in our laps more and more,” Stevens said.
The federal government will pay for 100% of the expansion for the first three years, and then incrementally pay less each year until 2020, when the feds will pay 90% and the state chips in the rest.
Several Republican governors like New Jersey’s Chris Christie back the Medicaid expansion plan, but it’s a hard sell in Jefferson City. The Republican-controlled legislature has shown little interest in embracing the plan.
