Name: People of Missouri Accomplish What Its GOP Lawmakers Refused to Do for Nearly 10 Years: Approve Medicaid Expansion
Brand: commondreams.org
SKU: commondreams-org-176
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

People of Missouri Accomplish What Its GOP Lawmakers Refused to Do for Nearly 10 Years: Approve Medicaid Expansion

preview

Sign up for our newsletter.Quality journalism. Progressive values. Direct to your inbox.Follow us: Common Dreams will never be locked behind a paywall because we believe our journalism should remain freely available to everyone ― not just those who can afford to pay. By becoming a sustaining monthly donor today, you can help make sure our work remains free for those who aren't able to chip in. Donate Now ×To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our Voters cast their ballots at Keevan Elementary School August 4, 2020 in North St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo: Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images) Called 'victory for health care,' ballot initiative succeeds where legislative efforts were long thwarted by Republican Party. An estimated 230,000 low-income residents of Missouri will for Medicaid after 53% of the state's voters passed a ballot measure expanding the program in Tuesday's election. The popular approval comes after nearly ten years of obstruction by Republican lawmakers in the state forbid expansion of the program made possible by the 2010 Affordable Care Act."It's a huge day for Missouri," Traci Gleason, vice president with the advocacy group Missouri Budget Project, KCUR. "It's something we have long needed in order to strengthen our state. This is something that will improve the health of our communities."VICTORY FOR HEALTH CARE!Just 5 weeks after OK’s vote to expand Medicaid, Missourians voted to follow suit &amp; deliver life-saving care to 230,000+ people!By amending the state constitution, voters ensured that politicians can NEVER take their health care away. — The Fairness Project (@ProjectFairness) &nbsp;Per the initiative language, Medicaid expansion in the state is slated to take effect in July of 2021. According to the Fairness Project, similar citizen-led expansion efforts around the country have eligibility for 830,000 low-income people.The Missouri vote comes in the midst of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused unemployment to spike, and tens of millions of Americans to their employer-sponsored insurance due to job loss.Missouri 39th state to expand Medicaid under the ACA, and the sixth state to expand Medicaid via ballot initiative. Successful efforts in Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, Utah and Oklahoma—where GOP-led state legislatures and/or GOP governors to enact expansion on their own—have helped that emerged when ACA was enacted."Voters are rejecting the idea that health care has to be a partisan issue and they are hungry for change," Jonathan Schleifer, executive director of The Fairness Project, which assisted the initiative efforts in Missouri and other states, in a statement. "We won't stop fighting until Americans in every state are afforded the same access to affordable health care, regardless of their zip code and income level."Citizen-led efforts to expand Medicaid with GOP opposition, and some Republican state legislatures and conservative advocacy groups implementation even after voter approval.Still, advocates are celebrating the Missouri initiative's victory."Amendment 2 won today," Caitlyn Adams, executive director for Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action the Kansas City Star Tuesday, "because no matter what we look like, where we live, or how much money we make, most of us want the same things—the ability to keep our families safe and well. Expanding Medicaid is a big step toward this goal."Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely. We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you. Donate Now ×To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our "The people of Pennsylvania deserve to know how Oz would vote on this bill if he were in the U.S. Senate." "There is a pervasive misconception that switching to clean, green energy will be painful, costly, and mean sacrifices for us all—but that's just wrong," said Oxford professor and study co-author Doyne Farmer. "We need more action on legislation that would ban Congressional stock trading. And fewer members of Congress in violation of the rules already on the books." "If the Child Tax Credit expansion had not expired at the end of 2021, it would have continued to push down poverty among children this year and beyond," noted one analyst. "We should all be proud of what we accomplished and what we stood up for: student supports and respect for educators," said the Seattle Education Association. Donate ×To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our

Sign up for our newsletter.Quality journalism. Progressive values. Direct to your inbox.Follow us: Common Dreams will never be locked behind a paywall because we believe our journalism should remain freely available to everyone ― not just those who can afford to pay. By becoming a sustaining monthly donor today, you can help make sure our work remains free for those who aren't able to chip in. Donate Now ×To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our Voters cast their ballots at Keevan Elementary School August 4, 2020 in North St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo: Michael B. Thomas/Getty...

public

commondreams

Common Dreams NewsCenter, often referred to simply as Common Dreams, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, U.S.-based, news website that declares itself as serving the progressive community. Common Dreams publishes news stories, editorials, and a newswire of current, breaking news. Common Dreams also re-publishes relevant content from numerous other sources such as the Associated Press and had published writers such as Robert Reich and Molly Ivins. The website also provides links to other relevant columnists, periodicals, radio outlets, news services, and websites.

People of Missouri Accomplish What Its GOP Lawmakers Refused to Do for Nearly 10 Years: Approve Medicaid Expansion

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS