Missouri House Votes Down Children’s Health Care

Today the Missouri House of Representatives voted down several amendments by the Democratic Caucus that would have restored the Governor’s request for increased funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The first amendment by Representative Chris Kelly, ranking member of the House Budget Committee, would have slightly reduced the increase in provider reimbursement for this year to cover an additional 20,000 children in Missouri. Essentially, this amendment would have taken a little bit of money from doctors and given life-saving health care to children.

The second amendment by Representative Leonard “Jonas” Hughes would have taken money from a variety of sources including meals for prisoners to give health care to children. The amazing thing about this amendment was that prisoners – that’s right prisoners – from around the state wrote to the General Assembly asking them to support the amendment. These prisoners were willing to have lower quality food to make sure that more children in the state would have health coverage. This gave Representative James Morris the opportunity to point out that Missouri prisoners may be smarter than the Republican Representatives.

Finally, House Minority Leader Paul LeVota moved to suspend the rules so that the House could simply increase the funding without having to offer a decreasing amendment.

All three of these failed along party lines.