The Missouri House Budget Committee has voted against funding for Medicaid expansion in the next fiscal year.
The committee, made up of mostly Republicans, has voted down 1.6-billion dollars in funding for Medicaid expansion in the next state budget cycle. Last year, 53-percent of Missouri voters approved a ballot measure to expand government-funded health care coverage to about 275-thousand low-income adults. House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith of southwest Missouri’s Carthage has led the anti-expansion funding effort.
Representative Peter Merideth, a Democrat from St. Louis, says the governor must proceed with expansion and calls the effort a blatantly unconstitutional act. Governor Parson opposed the expansion but has vowed to listen to the voters and has proposed 1.9-billion dollars in his budget outline to make expansion a reality. Whether the Senate goes along with the House Budget Committee’s plan remains to be seen.
