The Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee chairman is speaking out against an August Medicaid expansion ballot measure, saying it pits the Medicaid population against children. Cosby State Senator Dan Hegeman says Medicaid’s current budget in Missouri is about 12-billion dollars.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Dan Hegeman tells Capitol reporters that Amendment Two doesn’t provide any new revenues to pay for Medicaid expansion.
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and other Medicaid expansion supporters say Amendment Two will create 16-thousand new jobs annually during its first five years while increasing personal income by one-point-one billion annually. The Chamber says most of the new positions would be outside of St. Louis and Kansas City, and that 90 percent of those jobs will pay more than $15 an hour.
