Among those in Jefferson City today for the opening of the legislative session are busloads of advocates from across the state, to begin dialog with lawmakers on a variety of issues, including social justice and greater access to health care in Missouri.
Although there is growing support for Medicaid expansion in the state, Missouri lawmakers have yet to pass and send a bill to the governor’s desk.
Metropolitan Congregations United Executive Director Rev. David Gerth said the busload of supporters from the St. Louis area would join busloads from Kansas City and from the middle of the state to push for it.
“The moral clarity of why this is important is so sharp that we’ve got something like 1,500 people a year who are dying and wouldn’t have to – and those are real lives and people we know,” Gerth said. “We’ve got health facilities that are cutting programs or shutting down altogether and that affects everybody, not just people who are Medicaid eligible.”
Federal dollars promised though the Affordable Care Act will pay up to 90 percent of the cost for states to expand state-run Medicaid to new enrollees. In Missouri, children can receive Medicaid benefits if family earns 196 percent of the federal poverty rate for infants and 150 percent for children and youth ages 1-18. The 2015 Poverty Guidelines was $23,850 for a family of four and $11,670 for an individual. Missouri has not expanded Medicaid to include low-income adults.
Rev. Shaun Jones, assistant pastor of Greater Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, said Medicaid expansion supporters have a moral agenda.
“One of the things we want to do is create a sense of urgency among our state legislators to say, 1) all lives matter and black lives matter,” Jones said. “We are looking to press to get some serious and substantial legislation passed, to raise criminal justice reform.
“In Medicaid expansion, it’s a travesty that our state legislators have not at this point passed Medicaid Expansion. This year, we’re setting the agenda to say, people are dying in the streets people are dying in nursing homes and in hospitals, when they do not have to. And we as faith leaders across our state have come together – white, black; different denominations, different genders, different orientations to say, we can put some of our differences aside because there is a moral obligation the church has to create change in our statehouse.”