House OKs $223 million in extra spending

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved spending an extra $223 million in the current budget year to avoid cuts in Medicaid services, adoption subsidies and the First Steps program for developmentally disabled children.

Yet those are the same programs targeted for cuts under Gov. Matt Blunt's proposed budget for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

By a 150-1 vote, the House approved the supplemental appropriation bill, which provides additional spending authority to the state's original $18.9 billion budget for the 2005 fiscal year. The bill now heads to the Senate.

Most of the $223 million would go toward the growing number of poor, elderly and disabled individuals qualifying for the state's Medicaid health-care program. But the increase could be short-lived, because Blunt has proposed cuts that would eliminate about 89,000 people from Medicaid.

For example, the supplemental spending bill includes nearly $15 million to cover the implementation of legislation passed in 2001 that required that the Medicaid eligibility for the elderly and disabled be increased to 100 percent of the federal poverty level as of July 1, 2004. That would mean an individual could qualify while earning up to $9,310 annually.

Under Blunt's proposed budget, the Medicaid eligibility threshold for the elderly and disabled would drop this July to approximately 77 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $7,169 for that same individual.

The supplemental appropriation bill also sets aside an extra $6.9 million for adoption subsidies this fiscal year. But under Blunt's proposed budget for next year, that same program would be cut by $12 million and the adoptive parents and guardians of 4,000 children would lose monthly support payments.

An additional $5.5 million in the supplemental spending bill would go toward the First Steps program for developmentally disabled infants and toddlers. The governor's proposed budget for next year had called for cutting $23 million from First Steps, essentially eliminating the program. But after an outcry by parents, Blunt recently outlined revisions that would largely keep in tact the First Steps program and require families to pay a participation fee. Blunt has said children under Medicaid would not be affected by the fees.

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Spending bill is HB14

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Missouri Legislature: http://www.moga.state.mo.us