Thank You for Passing Medicaid Expansion
Statement on Passage of Missouri Amendment 2
38 states have expanded Medicaid as of Aug. 5, 2020. Missouri is proudly added! (click on image to enlarge)
Thank you to the voters of Missouri and thank you to all the individuals and organizations that worked so hard for passage of Amendment 2. Now, more than 230,000 hard-working Missourians will be able to access the health care they need to remain healthy, contributing members of society. This is especially welcome now as we face the challenges of COVID-19. We look forward to supporting the State of Missouri on a successful implementation of Medicaid expansion.
Thank you to our KCMS members for all the ways you supported this campaign—signing our supporter list, placing yard signs, sharing social media messages, volunteering with the campaign and just spreading the word. Special thanks to the Health Forward Foundation for its major funding of the statewide YesOn2 campaign, as well as current CEO Qiana Thomason and past CEO Bridget McCandless, MD, for the leadership you provided to initiate and support the campaign.
Kansas City Medical Society
Kansas City Medical Society Foundation
August 4, 2020
Kansas Update
KCMS and the KCMS Foundation support Medicaid expansion in Kansas as well. While bipartisan legislation was unsuccessful in Kansas this year, Alliance for a Healthy Kansas will be leading efforts to pass Medicaid expansion in 2021. We will keep you posted on these efforts.
Benefits of Medicaid Expansion
For our patients:
- Access: Provide access to needed health care for over 200,000 uninsured Missourians.
- Prevention: Enable individuals to address conditions before they become more serious and require more extensive and expensive treatment. Reduce pressure on emergency departments as last resource for treatment.
For our community:
- New funds and jobs: Bring taxpayers’ money back from Washington to invest in local workers and local communities instead of sending it to other states. Medicaid expansion will bring 16,000 new jobs to Missouri and boost the economy by $2.5 billion annually.
- Working families: Prevent workers from missing time off from work by treating conditions sooner.
- Rural health care: Shore up the finances of rural hospitals and prevent further closures–11 Kansas rural hospitals and 10 Missouri rural hospitals have closed since 2010.
More …
- Medicaid Expansion in Missouri Issue Brief (Missouri Foundation for Health)
- How Amendment 2 Benefits Missouri (Yes On 2)
Resource Links
- The Coverage Gap: Uninsured Poor Adults in States That Do Not Expand Medicaid (issue brief from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Fndation)
- Medicaid Expansion in Missouri (Missouri Foundation for Health, January 2020). This issue brief provides a comprehensive case for Medicaid expansion.
- What Kansas Can Learn from Medicaid Expansion in Other States (Kansas Health Institute Report, June 2019)
- Medicaid Expansion Fills Gaps in Maternal Health Coverage Leading to Healthier Mothers and Babies (Georgetown University Health Policy Institute report)