Dozens of physicians, hospital executives, uninsured individuals, disability advocates and others urged Missouri lawmakers to expand the state's Medicaid program at a committee hearing Saturday, according to a report from The Springfield News-Leader.
Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has supported a Medicaid expansion plan under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that would insure 300,000 people who currently don't have coverage in the state, according to the report.
The expansion would come at a cost of $2.3 billion annually, of which the state would pay 10 percent, according to the report. The PPACA gives full funding through 2016 to states that opt to expand their Medicaid programs.
Republican lawmakers such as Noel Torpey — chairman of the House Interim Committee on Citizens and Legislators Working Group on Medicaid Eligibility and Reform — have said the Medicaid system is broken and needs reform rather than expansion.
Mr. Torpey's committee is one of three special committees established by lawmakers following Republican legislators' repeated rejection of the Medicaid expansion in the 2013 session, according to the report.
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