AUSTIN
HUGUELET | SPRINGFIELD NEWS-LEADER | 10:00 pm CDT
September 14, 2019
The
push to get Medicaid expansion on Missouri ballots in 2020 is still in the
early stages, but it's already clear it'll be well-funded.
Less
than two weeks after a coalition of advocates went public with plans to make
more people eligible for state-funded health care, a campaign committee backing
them had taken in roughly $2.2 million in donations.
More
than half of the money flowed into the committee around the campaign's launch
date from Missouri organizations with a clear interest in expanding access to
health care.
Kansas
City-based Health Forward Foundation, which
"works to transform communities so everyone has an opportunity for better
health," donated $750,000. The political action committee Prospects for
Missouri, which received money earlier this year from the Health Forward
Foundation, donated $396,465.64.
St. Louis-based
health care provider BJC Healthcare and the Missouri
Hospital Association, which represents hospitals across the
state, also chipped in, giving $250,000 each.
If the
proposal they're funding wins voter approval, Missourians making less than
$18,000 a year or families of three pulling in less than $30,000 per year would
become eligible for coverage. It's estimated that 200,000 people would become newly
qualified.
Proponents
say that would help Missourians who make too much to qualify for
Medicaid now and too little to afford private health insurance, as well as
rural hospitals struggling with the cost of caring for people who can't afford
their services.
The
campaign immediately touted the haul in a news release Sept. 5.
St.
Louis-based Dr. Heidi Miller, who filed multiple petitions to expand Medicaid
with the state this year, called it "the strongest momentum we’ve had in
Missouri toward expanding Medicaid to hardworking citizens."
The
effort to expand Medicaid here also has garnered interest —and generous
donations — from national groups.
The
Fairness Project, a nonprofit primarily backed by a California health workers
union that supported successful expansion
initiatives in red states Utah, Nebraska and Idaho last
year, has contributed roughly $40,000 to two committees supporting expansion.
The
Sixteen Thirty Fund, which gives millions of dollars to
liberal interests around the country each year and
contributed to Missouri's effort to raise the statewide minimum wage last
year, donated $24,050
last month.
And
then on Tuesday, a nonprofit called The North Fund dumped
$500,000 into the effort.
Naomi
Seligman, a spokesman for The North Fund, described the organization as a
"nonpartisan social impact organization" with goals including
"creating better access to quality health care for all Americans"
backed by a "a diverse set of donors who share our commitment to working
toward a more just, fair, and equitable country."
The
combination of in-state and out-of-state contributions isn't necessarily
unusual. In recent years, Missouri has seen a proliferation of interest in
progressive ballot initiatives that sidestep a legislature dominated by
Republicans, including from outside groups.
Clean
Missouri, the ethics reform package voters approved last November, for example,
garnered support from out-of-state labor unions, Planned Parenthood and a
nonprofit founded by George Soros, the liberal billionaire and conservative
boogeyman.
The
effort to defeat a Republican-backed ban on mandatory union dues — which
backers called the "right-to-work" law — also combined spending from local and
out-of-state groups.
The
failed bid to preserve the law did the same,
garnering funds from former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens' notorious "dark
money" nonprofit A New Missouri, as well as the usual local business
boosters and The National Right to Work Committee of Virginia.
The
current Medicaid expansion effort will need more than 172,000 signatures to
qualify for the ballot in 2020. If ultimately passed, Missouri would be the 37th state
to expand the program and the changes proposed would be
enshrined the state constitution, limiting conservative lawmakers' ability to
make alterations.
A southwest Missouri faith group is
already working toward that goal.
Back in
July, Faith Voices of Southwest Missouri organizer Susan Schmalzbauer told a
meeting of volunteers she was hoping they could contribute 3,500 signatures to
the cause.
House
Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, had already signed.
But
Republicans are just as wary of the idea as they have been in the
past, warning it will cost too much.
The
federal government will foot 90 percent of the bill for the expansion, but the
state will still have to fund the other 10 percent.
House
Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, said in a press conference Wednesday that
expansion would "blow a sizable hole in our general revenue budget"
and require cuts to education spending.
A
recent analysis from the Center for Health Economics and Policy at Washington
University in St. Louis suggests the expansion would actually save money,
to the tune of $932 million by 2024.
A separate state analysis said
the state government could expect an impact ranging from at least $200 million
in increased costs to savings of $1 billion by 2026.
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