Search results for: “expanding coverage”
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Making Sense of Public Statements: Universal Access to Coverage
As news reports attempt to keep up with the fast-paced developments in ideas for fundamentally changing the nation’s health insurance infrastructure for low-and moderate-income Americans, we should focus on the underlying ideas driving the debates. Paying careful attention to the language used to talk about the features of various proposals to modify the 2010 Patient…
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Ensuring Healthy Moms: The Case for Extending Medicaid Postpartum Coverage
Missouri is experiencing a maternal mortality crisis, with mortality rates double the national average. The situation is even more dire for Black parents, who die from pregnancy-related complications four times more often than white parents. Researchers have found that many of these deaths stem from preventable causes and occur later in the postpartum period. Although…
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A Constitutional Right to Medicaid Coverage
There is no single issue more important to the Foundation’s work and mission than Medicaid expansion and achieving health equity in Missouri. In August of 2020, a substantial majority of Missouri voters approved an amendment to ingrain Medicaid expansion into Missouri’s constitution. Thanks to the will of the people, expanded Medicaid enrollment was set to…
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The Right Medicine for American Health Care
In a previous post, a diagnosis of American health care ills revealed that – for various reasons – the American Health Care Act is the wrong medicine. In this post we build on that diagnosis to explore prescriptions for giving the country the right medicine, suggesting a pathway to healing the system and improving the…
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Medicaid Expansion: Seven things the public should know about the evidence
In 2012, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act but made Medicaid expansion optional for states. This resulted in a natural experiment in which 37 states (including the District of Columbia) expanded Medicaid and 14 have not, including Missouri. As Missouri considers Medicaid expansion, we have the unusual opportunity to learn…
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The Deep Divide: State Borders Create Medicaid Haves And Have-Nots
By: Laura Ungar ST. LOUIS — Patricia Powers went a few years without health insurance and couldn’t afford regular doctor visits. So she had no idea cancerous tumors were silently growing in both of her breasts. If Powers lived just across the Mississippi River in Illinois, she would have qualified for Medicaid, the federal-state health…
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The Future of Universal Health Insurance (Deja Vu)
When I was working at Bellevue Hospital in New York City after college, it felt like national health insurance was “just around the corner.” Multiple plans were introduced in Congress and President Nixon offered his own proposal. Most knowledgeable observers assumed the country would have health insurance for everyone, the only question was which plan…
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For the Sake of Racial Equity, It’s Time for Nationwide Medicaid Expansion
It took more than a decade of work from countless organizations and dedicated individuals to make it a reality, but on July 22, the Missouri Supreme Court reaffirmed the will of the state’s voters by unanimously declaring that Medicaid expansion is the law of the land. Having only moved to Missouri and joined the Foundation…
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Systems Change is the Change We Need
Conversation starter: Ask your friends if they feel optimistic about the times that we’re living in and the progress being made. Depending on who you call friends, I think you’ll get a mix of responses. Those not on the receiving end of society’s marginalizations would probably say yes. Those on the other side of the…
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Pre-existing Conditions: Is poverty on the list?
Pre-existing conditions, a term of art in the health insurance industry, has garnered widespread attention recently. What began in the 1930s as a list of diseases or conditions used to not enroll people most likely to use health insurance became a staple of profitable health insurance businesses. The industry benefits financially from enrolling healthier people,…
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Missouri Foundation for Health and KFF Announce New Long-term Partnership, Establish Kaiser Health News Midwest Bureau in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS, MO & SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) and KFF (the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation) have entered into a new long-term partnership to establish a KHN (Kaiser Health News) Midwest Bureau, based in St. Louis, Missouri. KFF – the trusted source of health policy information – produces health policy…
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Medicaid Expansion Makes Sense for Missouri
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the nation and the state of Missouri. As of June 9, there have been more than 15,000 cases of COVID-19 and 800+ deaths in our state. The economic fallout has been widespread as well, with more than 500,000 Missourians filing for unemployment since March and the…