Bill crucial to Missouri Medicaid funding fails
By Jason Hancock, Rudi Keller and Tessa Weinberg
Missouri Independent
Missouri lawmakers ended the 2021 legislative session with a $2 billion question left unanswered.
For the first time in 30 years, the General Assembly failed to renew taxes on hospitals, nursing homes and pharmacies that last year accounted for $2.3 billion of Missouri’s $10.8 billion Medicaid program.
Now, lawmakers have no choice but to return to Jefferson City for a special session before the taxes expire in September.
Yet the issues that upended the process in the first place aren’t going anywhere.
Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, sponsored the amendment that locked the Senate in a debate over whether to put restrictions on the types of contraceptives available to Medicaid recipients.