Blunt lays out Mo. health care plan

Legislation will decide the process of the plan's three phases.

By James Patrick Schmidt

Published Sept. 21, 2007

Gov. Matt Blunt's new health care plan, Insure Missouri, would make health insurance more affordable for Missourians not covered by any other insurance plan, according to a news release.

The plan, which was unveiled Tuesday, calls for participants to contribute an amount determined by their family size and total income. The state would pay the remainder of the insurance costs.

According to the news release, the plan would be implemented in three phases, increasing the number of people covered in each phase.

The governor's plan is meant to deal with an issue that Missourians have drawn attention to.

"There are more than five million Missourians with access to healthcare, but there are about 700,000 who do not," Gov. Blunt's spokeswoman, Jessica Robinson, said. "The governor has heard from Missourians that it is a priority to fix that."

The first phase of the plan will be implemented, but future phases depend on the support of the legislature.

"The funding for the first phase was already appropriated in the budget, a total of $5 million in state funding," Robinson said. "Future funding will need to be approved by the General Assembly."

According to the news release, the first phase of the plan opens eligibility to working parents and caregivers with children in the home and who have incomes up to 100 percent of the poverty level beginning in February 2008. Approximately 54,500 Missourians will be eligible in phase one, the news release stated.

The news release also stated that if the Missouri General Assembly approves Blunt's plan, phase two will assist an additional 77,000 Missourians and cap cost sharing of the eligible families at 5 percent of income.

Phase three will focus on making health care more affordable for small business owners and employees.

Rep. Judy Baker, D-Columbia, who supports increased Medicaid coverage in Missouri, thinks this plan will not be enough to solve the issue of uninsured Missourians.

"I think it will do very little toward helping our uninsured problem that has been exasperated by the cuts made by the governor," she said.

Baker referred to the health care cuts made in 2005, which she has submitted legislation to restore.

Baker said she is especially concerned about the plan because of how it was formulated.

"This was not a bipartisan effort, and there's not a lot that we know about it," she said. "It hasn't come out of a committee. It's coming out of the blue. I think it came out so quickly because the governor is reeling from the unpopularity of the health care cuts he made."

Baker said she is concerned about the governor's level of credibility on health care issues because of his performance in the last few years.

"We were concerned about the uninsured before they made the uninsured problem worse," she said.