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Stories tagged with “Jay Nixon”

Health

Missouri Gov.: Implementing Obamacare Is ‘The Smart Thing And The Right Thing’

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Nov 29, 2012 at 4:20 pm

Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO)

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) announced today that his state will participate in the optional expansion of the Medicaid program under Obamacare, one of the crucial methods that the health care reform law uses to extend coverage to previously uninsured Americans. An estimated 33,000 Missouri residents will be able to access health insurance thanks to Nixon’s decision to expand Medicaid.

“As Chief Executive for the state, I take my financial responsibilities very seriously,” Nixon said in the statement. “I trust that as others scrutinize the numbers, as I have, they will come to the same conclusion: that we can do the smart thing and the right thing for the people of Missouri.”

Republican governors across the country have been digging in their heels against implementing Obamacare in their states, claiming that covering more of their low-income residents under Medicaid would impose too much of a strain on their budgets — despite significant evidence to the contrary. But a statement from Nixon’s office noted that expanding Medicaid represents a “fiscally responsible move” for his state because the federal government will contribute 100 percent of the costs of expansion for the first three years, and 90 percent or more in the years after that. And on top of that, a report from earlier this week found that the additional funding from the federal government will help spur the local economy by creating 24,000 new jobs in the state in 2014 alone.

Nixon’s decision will help move his state toward implementing the Affordable Care Act after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature has repeatedly attempted to block Obamacare’s implementation altogether. In September, Missouri lawmakers voted to give employers the right to deny their employees coverage for contraceptive services — a method of circumventing Obamacare’s contraception mandate, which requires employer-based insurance plans to cover birth control without a co-pay. And on November 6, Missouri voters passed a meaningless anti-Obamacare ballot initiative to prevent their governor from moving forward with a state-based health exchange, another one of the health law’s tactics for lowering the uninsurance rate. Instead of preventing Obamacare’s implementation in Missouri, that vote actually left Nixon with no choice but to cede to the federal government, which will now step in and set up a health exchange for the state.

The news that Missouri will move forward with expanding Medicaid is especially good news for the state’s hospitals, which stood to lose about $400 million in funding without the Medicaid expansion. Some estimates projected that, if Missouri decided against expanding Medicaid, as many as 40 to 50 percent of rural hospitals in the state could have been forced to close.

NEWS FLASH

Missouri Lawmakers Override Governor’s Veto Of Bill Allowing Employers To Deny Access To Birth Control | The Missouri legislature has overridden Gov. Jan Nixon’s (D) veto of a bill that would allow employers or health insurance providers to stop offering coverage for contraception, abortion, or sterilization if doing so violated their religious or moral convictions. Nixon had vetoed the legislation in July after it passed in May. The Missouri House voted 109-45 — the exact number of votes needed — to overturn Nixon’s decision, and the Senate approved the override 26-6. The contraception measure was designed to push back against an Obamacare regulation requiring contraception coverage to be included in insurance plans at no additional cost. According to the Associated Press, Missouri has had a law since 2001 requiring contraception to be covered under pharmaceutical benefits.

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Sep 12, 2012 at 4:38 pm

NEWS FLASH

Missouri Governor Vetoes Bill Permitting Employer To Deny Women Access To Birth Control | Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) vetoed a bill that would have allowed employers or health insurance providers to stop offering coverage for contraception, abortion, or sterilization if doing so violated their religious or moral convictions. The governor’s decision sets up a potential conflict with the Republican-dominated legislature that approved the bill by wide margins; the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. John Lamping (R), said he will work to override the veto in September. Nixon said he stopped the bill because “we want families making these decisions — not insurance companies.”

Related Posts

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jul 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Economy

Missouri Becomes Second State To Divert Foreclosure Funds Away From Homeowners To Balance Its Budget

By Travis Waldron on Feb 13, 2012 at 9:25 am

Missouri AG Chris Koster (D)

Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced that he would use the funds his state received from a $26 billion mortgage settlement between 49 states and the nation’s largest banks to help balance the state’s budget, even though the settlement money was marked to help homeowners. In all, Walker will use $25.6 million of the $31.6 million Wisconsin’s state government receives to help close a budget shortfall.

Though Walker’s move to push struggling homeowners aside may seem radical, it is now being followed by at least one other state. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) and Attorney General Chris Koster (D) have pledged to put $40 million of the state’s $196 million share of the settlement into the state’s general fund to boost its higher education budget, Stateline reports:

Koster, a Democrat, told reporters on Thursday that he agrees with the governor’s call for more higher education funding and will transfer the $40 million Nixon has requested into the general fund, citing the “severe budget shortages” the state faces.

Though specific terms of the settlement have not been released, states have been given significant leeway on how to spend the money from it. According to the National Mortgage Settlement website, however, the money is supposed to “help fund consumer protection and state foreclosure protection efforts.” The full $26 billion, though, is already woefully short of what is needed to ameliorate the nation’s housing crisis, and diverting funds from it to other problems will only exacerbate that fact.

And while Nixon and Koster’s plan to boost higher education funding, which faces a 12.5 percent cut in Nixon’s proposed budget, is certainly a noble goal, there are other sources from which the money could come that wouldn’t jeopardize relief from homeowners. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out in January, Missouri has a “propensity to hand out tax credits like legislative candy along a parade route.” Ending the credits, many of which go to corporations, could generate more than $500 million in new revenue, more than enough to restore the higher education budget without taking money from programs meant to help struggling homeowners.

Politics

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon Cuts Help For Abused Children To Pay For Disaster Relief

By Guest Blogger on Jun 28, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Child reading donated books at Lafayette House shelter, Joplin, MO

Missouri is still reeling from the aftermath of catastrophic flooding and the single deadliest tornado in 60 years. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) has pledged $50 million to help the disaster area. Unfortunately, Nixon paid for the disaster relief by cutting both education funding and grants supporting domestic violence programs — such as those that support abused women and children made homeless in Joplin:

Missouri’s budget had set aside $1 million for disaster aid, but Gov. Jay Nixon quickly pledged $50 million for the Joplin tornado and southeast Missouri flooding, offsetting that with cuts to other government programs. The biggest chunk came from higher education, which already was slated for a 5.5 percent cut in the coming school year. Nixon deepened that cut to 7 or 8 percent, depending on the institution, and also reduced the amount of money lawmakers had budgeted for scholarships.

For the University of Missouri’s four-campus system, that means its state aid for the 2011-2012 school year will be 11 percent lower than in 2001, despite an enrollment increase of 39 percent during the past decade.

Eric Woods, student president of the Columbia campus, acknowledged the need for disaster assistance, but bemoaned that students now have to shoulder the burden for Missouri’s “crummy luck” with disasters.
“I think when you’re making a state choose between rebuilding after several natural disasters or funding their schools, there’s something not quite right about it,” said Woods, a senior majoring in political science, history and religious studies.

Among other things, Nixon also trimmed the budget for domestic violence grants by 15 percent, essentially continuing a cut from the previous year. That comes as the number of abused women and children seeking shelter at the Lafayette House in Joplin has more than doubled since the May 22 tornado, said Louise Secker, the organizations’ director of community services.

As the state rebuilds from its record disasters, recovery assistance is necessary and important. Yet Republican leaders such as Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor have said it is immoral and unacceptable to offer disaster assistance without other spending cuts, because “we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids.”

Nixon’s choice to pay for tornado and flood assistance with funds for schools and abused mothers and children is just the latest example of how state budgets have declared war on the most vulnerable.

– Sean Savett

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