About four dozen older Missourians walked the Capitol halls Wednesday, meeting with lawmakers and encouraging them to pass the five priorities of Missouri's Silver Haired Legislature.
The SHL, a mock legislature of senior citizens that meets at the Capitol each October, each year recommends General Assembly approval of priorities determined during the three-day October session.
This year's proposals include:
• Restoring funding for home-delivered and congregate (senior center) meals provided by the state's 10 Area Agencies on Aging (AAA).
• Increasing funding for programs and services provided by the AAAs.
• Expanding Medicaid eligibility from the current level to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The federal Affordable Care Act envisions all U.S. states making the expansion - which hasn't happened in Missouri and a number of other states - with the federal government paying 90 percent of the expansion costs.
Missouri's Republican legislative leaders have resisted efforts to make the expansion.
• Increasing the MO HealthNet allowable asset level to $2,000 for an individual and $4,000 for a couple.
• Retaining the "circuit breaker" property tax credits for seniors.
Pat Donehue, Jefferson City and chair of the Central Missouri SHL delegation, said lawmakers' hearing and debate schedules made it hard to meet with everyone Wednesday.
In addition to promoting the five SHL priority bills, Donehue said, the group also told lawmakers about their support for measures that would:
• Approve guardianship letters for grandparents.
• Redirect to the MO HealthNet program money retrieved from fraud against the program.
• Reasonably restrict payday loan operations.
• Ban the use of hand-held cellphones by drivers of all ages, while operating a motor vehicle.
• Require the acknowledgment of a lien being placed against an owner's real estate or other assets.
Missouri's SHL began in 1973 as the first mock legislature in the nation, after Congress amended the Older Americans Act to include advocacy groups.
The SHL involves 120 representatives and 30 senators, plus 30 alternates - who must be at least 60, live in the service area they represent and win election within that service area.
Members also remind lawmakers that past SHL successes include the circuit breaker law, creation of the Missouri "Senior Rx" program, deleting the sales tax on prescription medicines and elder abuse laws.
Mid-Missourians participating in Wednesday's lobbying effort included Donehue, Bill Trimm, Richard Hirst and Robert Miller, all of Jefferson City; Judith Baumgartner and Nick Mercer, Holts Summit; Kate King, Larry Wyatt and Russell Breyfogle, Columbia; Harold Enslen, Mexico; Sherman Davis and Susan Davis, Lebanon; Norma Moore, Boss; and Elizabeth Broughton, Salem.
People with questions about the SHL are encouraged to contact Donehue at 893-3428, or at [email protected], or Kate King at 573-443-5823.