Groups express alarm about GOP health bill's effects on Medicaid, state budget

While some U.S. senators say the Republicans’ proposed health-care bill is needed to replace the Affordable Care Act, some Missouri groups have expressed concern over how the bill will affect Medicaid recipients and the state budget.

Representatives from the Missouri Budget Project, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the AARP and others took part in a panel discussion of the bill Monday and what its passage would entail.

“There are about 990,000 Missourians who receive health services through Medicaid, largely kids, people with disabilities and Missouri seniors,” said Missouri Budget Project communications director Traci Gleason.

According to the Missouri Department of Social Services, that means about one in five Missouri residents receives Medicaid services, but in several Southeast Missouri counties, that ratio is higher.

Scott County, for example, has 27 percent of residents enrolled in Medicaid. Dunklin County has 37 percent of residents enrolled.

The bill is part of a larger effort by congressional Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare,” after that law came under fire as well.

Opponents of the ACA have pointed to rising costs, health-insurance mandates and poorly functioning health-insurance exchanges.

Even supporters of the ACA have conceded the law has serious flaws, and many have called for major changes to rectify them.

The GOP senators’ bill is a way to start over and replace a system they say is unsustainable.

But Amy Blouin, executive director of the Missouri Budget Project, said the negative effects of the GOP bill should give lawmakers pause.

“The original draft of the bill that was released before their recess ... the Congressional Budget office found that would impact about 22 million people who would lose health insurance,” she said.

“In Missouri, it’s more than several hundred thousand — 250,000 people, including 90,000 children.”

The other major consideration for her organization, she said, is the effect the bill would have on the Missouri budget.

“Federal funding for Missouri and all other states would be capped and would reduce, over time, the amount of federal funds coming to the state, pushing all the financial responsibility and the financial risk of Medicaid onto Missouri,” she said.

A similar health-care bill previously proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives would cut Missouri’s federal funding by about $3 billion over the next decade, Blouin said, but the Senate version’s cuts would be deeper.

“The cost to Missouri would be even greater under the Senate bill,” she said. “We’re very concerned that not only does that impact people and access to health care, it impacts our economy as well, particularly the rural economy.”

Ken Haller, president of the Missouri Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the importance of Medicaid can be underestimated.

“Over a third of kids in the state of Missouri rely on Medicaid for everyday treatment as well as for life-threatening treatment,” he said.

“No child should lose health care because of what Congress may decide over the coming weeks.”

And Jay Hardenbrook, deputy state director of AARP, said children and their mothers aren’t the only ones who use Medicaid.

“The majority of the spending actually goes out through the elderly and the disabled population,” he said. “And that’s because 60 percent of the long-term care costs in the state of Missouri and throughout the country are paid for by Medicaid.”

tgraef@semissourian.com

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