121st District State Representative Donald Mayhew on Medicaid expansion

The Missouri House Budget Committee has been dealing lately with the impact voter-approved Medicaid Expansion will have on the state budget. 121st District State Representative Donald Mayhew is a member of the Budget Committee. He says, “Medicaid has traditionally paid for health care for children, the aged, and the disabled and pregnant women. The expansion extends Medicaid benefits to able-bodied people only and will result in, based on projections, an additional $138 Million out of an already stressed General Revenue portion of the budget. The proponents of Expansion had promised that there would be no impact on General Revenue and in fact, we would see a windfall from it. So far, that is not proving to be accurate.” He continues, “We must keep in mind that we are in the first budget year for Expansion. $138 Million is only the additional General Revenue portion of what is soon to be over $14 Billion of the State budget, and that additional General Revenue covers only a portion of the hundreds of thousands that are predicted to sign up for the Expansion program. While we do not know the ultimate impact of Expansion on the State budget, it is obvious that there is no windfall to the State resulting from it.”