Senate has Filibuster over Medicaid

In a late-night filibuster this week, the Senate debated various components of Medicaid. It all started when Sen. Dan Hegeman (R-Cosby) brought up SCS SB 29 for perfection. SB 29 was a simple bill that would have extended the sunset on provider reimbursements under Medicaid until 2021. Shortly thereafter, Sen. David Sater (R-Cassville) offered an amendment to the bill which would have required participants on MO HealthNet to comply with work and community engagement requirements to be eligible to remain on MO HealthNet. The amendment brought opposition from the Democrats who argued work requirements put a burden on people getting health care.
 
Sen. Scott Sifton (D-St. Louis) then offered an amendment to the amendment that removes work requirements for Medicaid and replaced it with expansion of Medicaid to people who have incomes at or below 133% of the federal poverty level. This brought complaints from the Republicans that the state couldn't afford to expand Medicaid. Then, Sen. John Rizzo (D-Kansas City) offered another amendment that both expanded Medicaid and included work requirements for MO HealthNet. He argued that since neither side liked all the components of the previous amendments, it was a good compromise. After some debate, Sen. Hegeman withdrew SCS SB 29 with all the amendments pending and offered another version of SB 29 that would extend the sunset only until 2020. This time, with the filibuster nearing 11:00 pm, the Senators quickly adopted the bill and the debate ended with no expansion of Medicaid, and no work requirements.