Count Missouri among the states that are
perfectly okay with you getting sick and dying without health care if you're among the working poor.
Republican supermajorities have all but scuttled Medicaid expansion in Missouri, defeating — at least for this year — efforts supported by the Democratic governor to extend basic health coverage to an estimated 250,000 low-income state residents.
State lawmakers are set to finalize their annual budget this week, and neither chamber included expansion in their blueprints. They’ve opted to create committees to study the issue for the rest of the year and to report on the impact of expansion in early 2014, delaying any decision until after the Jan. 1 start date.
Because you need a committee to tell you that providing health care to a quarter of a million Missourians, with the federal government picking up the entire tab, is a good thing to do. Yeesh.