SENATE RESURRECTS INSURE MISSOURI

The Senate on April 23 gave preliminary approval to a revived version of Insure Missouri, a health care proposal Gov. Matt Blunt proposed with much fanfare last fall that seemingly died after encountering stiff legislative resistance, especially in the House of Representatives. While the new proposal, SB 1283, bears the Insure Missouri name and contains some features of the governor’s plan, it is actually modeled on an Indiana law that provides government subsidies for some low-income workers to buy private health insurance.
Under the bill, Missourians ages 19 to 64 with jobs that pay up to 225 percent of the federal poverty level could qualify if affordable health care isn’t available through their employer and if they pay $1,000 a year into a health care savings account. As with the original Insure Missouri, SB 1283 wouldn’t extend benefits to the elderly, disabled or children, nor would it restore coverage to the more than 180,000 Missourians who lost it due to the governor’s 2005 Medicaid cuts.

GOVERNOR’S HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL FACES CRITICISM

Gov. Matt Blunt’s new proposal for expanding health insurance coverage to more Missourians drew immediate criticism from both Republicans and Democrats over the plan’s projected cost and whether it could realistically deliver on the governor’s promises.

Blunt’s Insure Missouri plan would assist working Missourians who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid in obtaining private health insurance. However, it would do nothing for the tens of thousands of children, senior citizens and disabled people who lost their health care coverage under the governor’s 2005 Medicaid cuts.

After years of saying it would be too costly to restore coverage to the 180,000 Missourians who lost it due to the 2005 cuts, Blunt now claims his plan would cover 200,000 Missourians at a cost of just $46 million in state revenue a year by 2010. Critics dispute that cost as improbably low to cover that many people.

Republican state Reps. Doug Ervin of Kearney and Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph, who both sponsored major health care legislation that passed earlier this year, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Blunt would have a hard time winning approval for his plan in the GOP-controlled General Assembly since it would create a large new state program.