Dear Editor:
Medicaid expansion would not only close the health care coverage gap for 300,000 Missourians ("Advocates protest for Medicaid expansion," 3/18/16), it would provide significant economic and fiscal benefits to our state. In addition to increased jobs and economic activity, expansion would net Missouri more than $100 million more in state general revenue savings and new tax revenue every year. Those are real dollars that could contribute to education, infrastructure or mental health needs in the Show-Me State.
Missouri currently funds 100 percent of many health services, including for some pregnant women and Missourians with disabilities or mental health needs, with state dollars.
Expanding Medicaid to 138 percent of the federal poverty level would allow those Missourians to be covered through a mostly federally funded Medicaid expansion.
The federal government would cover, at minimum, 90 percent of the cost of the expansion. Missouri's obligation would be exceeded by the savings the state would realize.
Other states are already seeing these savings. A recent analysis through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examined actual state budget savings in eight states that have expanded Medicaid. The report found that just 1.5 years into expansion, those states would have experienced savings and revenue increases of more than $1.8 billion.
Missouri can't afford to put off Medicaid expansion any longer.