Community members speak to back Medicaid expansion

April 24--WARRENSBURG -- With Missouri Medicaid expansion on life support, at best, supporters refuse to pull the plug while the finals three weeks of the General Assembly sessions speed toward an end.

The Senate voted along straight partisan lines, 25-9, against Medicaid expansion, sounding the death knell for the plan.

With City Hall as a backdrop, about 20 people gathered to hear community members do their best through verbal defibrillation to revive Medicaid expansion -- a plea the General Assembly has ignored for three years.

The event included four speakers: Melanie Corporon, community development director with the Missouri Valley Community Action Agency; Warrensburg resident Theresa Jackson, a mother and home care aide who has more than $50,000 in medical bills but does not qualify for Medicaid; registered nurse Christina Reser; and the Rev. Heather Jepsen with First Presbyterian Church.

"We're here in Warrensburg, calling on legislators to do the right thing and expand Medicaid," the Missouri Medicaid Coalition's deputy communications director, Rebecca L. Gorley, said. "Already, 1,800 hospital jobs have been lost. Seven hundred people are dying every year in our state because they don't have access to health care."

Corporon said Missouri Valley Community Action Agency serves 10 counties in this area, including Johnson, to move families from safety-net services to standing on their own -- something Medicaid expansion could help.

"In Johnson County, about 6,000 individuals are uninsured; 3,000 of those would fall under Medicaid if it was expanded," she said. "The quality of health care is important, access to health care is important. ...

"By working together, communities can solve health issues and make Johnson County and Missouri a healthier place. ... Missouri's been given the opportunity to expand Medicaid and it's morally the right thing to do."

While speaking at the event sponsored by The Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Missouri Valley Community Action Agency and the Missouri Medicaid Coalition, Jackson said her job does not pay enough to cover insurance, but the state counts child support as income so she has too much income to get Medicaid. The result are medical bills she cannot afford to pay.

"I worked with several different insurance offices to try and get (insurance), but I still don't qualify. I'm a single mom, four boys at home -- I just work all the time and really need insurance," she said.

Reser said she has worked for more than 20 years as a nurse.

"I have witnessed this disparity between ... working Missourians that are trying desperately to make ends meet and deciding on if they have to pay for food or child care or all the other multitudes of things that they have to balance in order to just survive," she said, adding, "If it doesn't impact you now, you're only one step away from being in that gap. One illness, one accident and this could be your life -- trying and struggling to make ends meet."

Reser said the ball is in the court of Missouri lawmakers.

"(Change) can only occur if we put pressure on elected representatives who think outside the box, employ moral courage," she said.

Jepsen said expanding Medicaid is a moral imperative.

"There is no good financial reason not to do it," she said. "There's no good business reason not to do it. It's good for our businesses and good for our people."

Religions call for caring for others as one cares for oneself, Jepsen said.

"Many of our elected officials have been elected on platforms of religion, elected speaking and professing their Christian faith, and then they go out in the world and succumb to the religion of partisan politics instead of the true faith of standing up for our neighbors, our brothers and sisters in need," she said. "So, we're here today to say expand Medicaid now. There is no excuse for these partisan politics, there is no excuse for this coverage gap, there is no excuse for ignoring our neighbors in need."

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