Senate hopeful touts health care

U.S. Senate candidate Jim Talent touted his health care plans during a tour of the Heartland Care and Rehab Center in Cape Girardeau on Wednesday.

Talent pushed his Missouri First Health Security Initiative, a plan that includes allowing associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association to sponsor health care plans for its small-business members.

Talent said it would expand health care access to millions of Americans who currently don't have health insurance.

The majority of the uninsured either own a small business, are employed by a small business or are dependent on someone who owns or works for a small business, he said.

"It wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime," said Talent, who pushed such a plan in his years in Congress. His proposal twice passed the House of Representatives only to be blocked in the politically divided Senate.

"I couldn't get it through the Senate, which is often the graveyard of good ideas," he said. Talent also wants more federal funding for community health centers, expanded medical savings accounts and more money for nursing homes. Medicaid currently pays nursing homes less than $92 a day per patient.

That's less than the cost of some motel rooms, Talent said. Bill Mitchell, vice president of operations for the nursing home and 30 others spread across Missouri, Arkansas and Arizona, said Medicaid reimbursement is $17 a day less than what it costs his company to care for a patient.

Mitchell said raising the reimbursement would allow his company to pay better benefits to its employees.

"We're trying to compete in getting good employees," he said.