Category: Health Care

Washington Post, August 30, 2013 Obamacare is upon us, and already fraudsters are out to cheat people. With a lot of confusion about the health insurance marketplaces, consumers are receiving phone calls from people claiming to provide insurance cards needed under the Affordable Care Act. Keep your guard up, says Edward Johnson, president and chief executive of the Better Business Bureau of Metro Washington and Eastern Pennsylvania. One of the more controversial and confus ...

The Beacon, August 19, 2013 A few years ago, Missouri had a surplus of funds for assisting visually impaired people in the state but had difficulty reaching these clients. The state sought the help of the Missouri Association of Area Agencies on Aging, based in Jefferson City. “The state couldn’t spend all of the money because it couldn’t find the population needing the services,” explains Catherine Edwards, executive director of the association. “They came to us and guess wh ...

Consumers Council of Missouri advocated for the expansion of Medicaid to give more Missourians access to affordable health care -- one of CCM's primary issues -- in testimony before the Missouri House Interim Committee on Citizens and Legislators Working Group on Medicaid Eligibility and Reform.   Joan Bray, Interim Director of CCM, spoke before the committee on Wednesday, August 14, at Forest Park Community College. Bray's two main points were for the state of Missouri to fulfi ...

By Timothy McBride in the St. Louis Beacon, June 11, 2013  The Missouri legislature closed its 2013 legislative session without resolving what was likely the most important question facing it: whether to adopt the proposal put forward by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, to expand the Medicaid program to a projected 260,000 uninsured people in Missouri.  While a bipartisan solution did not pass, the legislature appointed a committee to consider this question further. Recent signals su ...

Capitol Watch: Failure and Inertia in Jefferson City Kansas City Star, May 17, 2013  Missouri Medicaid Expansion Too Important to Die St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 22, 2013 ...

Columbia Tribune, April 28, 2013 In a number of states, Republican lawmakers are making a stubborn stand against the expansion of Medicare coverage contained in the federal Affordable Care Act. They laud themselves for having denied a tenet of Obamacare, sticking it to the president whose name is attached. Trouble is, their main effect is to make life harder for constituents in their own states, not to mention throwing sand in the progress of health care reform. Republi ...

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 22, 2013 A brutal form of cynicism lies behind the latest excuse offered by Missouri Senate Republicans for refusing to even discuss an expansion of the state Medicaid program. The proposal would extend health insurance to poor people and bring thousands of jobs to the state by leveraging billions of dollars in federal investment. Sen. John Lamping, R-Ladue, was one of several senators to use the word “dead” to describe House Bill 700, sponsored ...

Associate Press, April 16, 2013 Rallying with one of the largest crowds of the year at the Missouri Capitol, Gov. Jay Nixon urged activists on Tuesday to implore reluctant Republican lawmakers to expand Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of lower-income adults. The Democratic governor headlined a nearly hour-long pep rally that his administration says drew more than 1,000 people to the Capitol - a crowd so large that some state employees were asked to park their vehic ...

Springfield New-Leader, March 2, 2013 Kansas City Star, March 1, 2013 Kansas City Star, March 8, 2013 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 1, 2013 ...