Missourians have spoken — they want Medicaid expansion.
The courts have spoken — Missouri must open Medicaid to an estimated 275,000 more of our neighbors who need help.
Lawmakers, worried about the cost, have argued that Missouri’s budget was and is at stake because of the expansion.
But what was and is stake is whether the will of the people, who plainly told lawmakers what it was they wanted in a vote nearly a year ago, has any weight in Jefferson City.
THE ARGUMENT that the state can’t afford Medicaid expansion has been all along a red herring, in that there have been multiple sources of revenue and windfalls — the latest being pandemic relief funds — that could have been used to pay for Missouri’s share of the cost of expanding the program.
There also have been options to raise additional revenue, including hiking Missouri’s shamefully low cigarette tax.
And there have been studies showing that Medicaid expansion will be a net positive for the state’s economy. A 2019 study by the Center for Health Economics and Policy at Washington University concluded Medicaid expansion could save the state as much as $1.3 billion by 2026.
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry called Medicaid expansion a “pro-jobs measure that will help fuel economic growth throughout our state.”
A study by the Missouri Foundation for Health concluded that over a five-year period from 2022-2026, the increase in federal funding — the federal government pays 90% of the expansion cost — will help create 16,330 jobs, most of those jobs “would pay well above minimum wage,” and Medicaid expansion would boost the state’s economic output by $2.5 billion, its gross domestic product by $1.6 billion and lead to a rise in state personal income of $1.1 billion.
After hearing about last week’s decision, Amy Blouin, president of the Missouri Budget Project, said: “State after state has shown that in addition to providing insurance to those eligible, expansion is a fiscal and economic boon to state economies and budgets.”
We urge Missouri lawmakers to let go of the Medicaid fight — voters have spoken, the courts have spoken, the fight is done — and focus instead on other challenges that lie ahead for Missouri.
