Supreme Court of Missouri considers future of Medicaid expansion
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Missouri's highest court will now decide on the future of Medicaid expansion in the state.
The court's seven judges heard arguments Tuesday morning in an appeal of a Cole County court decision ruling the voter-approved expansion unconstitutional. You can listen to the audio of arguments here.
A Cole County judge ruled in June, that a voter-approved measure in August 2020 violated the state's constitution. Judge Jon Beetem said ballot initiatives, like Amendment 2, cannot force the state to pay for a new program without providing some sort of funding source. The Attorney General's Office argued that the legislature never intended to include the newly qualified for Medicaid in its appropriation, which Beetem shot down.
Attorney Chuck Hatfield, who represents the women suing, said Beetem made a ruling on an issue neither side had raised in the case. An appeals court in 2020 previously decided that the ballot initiative did not require the Missouri General Assembly to spend any extra money. Hatfield asked the court to say that the measure required the state to accept people on Medicaid who now qualify under it.
"We ask this court to remind the executive branch that the people, by the vote to amend their constitution, have required the executive branch to enroll our clients in the MO HealthNet program," Hatfield said.
There is not timetable for when the court might decide the case.
The expansion now allows about 275,000 more people to qualify for Medicaid coverage in Missouri. Gov. Mike Parson withdrew his plan to the federal government outlining the expansion after state lawmakers chose not to add extra money to the MO HealthNet, the state's Medicaid program, to pay for health services for those newly qualified.
Joel Ferber, an attorney representing the women suing, said the medical insurance would allow them to afford prescription medication and care for themselves at home, rather than in hospitals or long-term care facilities.
"Our clients are desperate," Ferber said. "Our named plaintiffs and people like them are desperate for the health care that they need. And that's what it's about. That's why the voters voted for this."
Judge Beetem said the cost of the Medicaid expansion would be over a billion dollars.
Supreme Court Judge Brent Powell questioned the attorney general's office on whether or not the court could invalidate all ballot measures after the vote if they did not have funding sources specified. Solicitor General John Sauer said he wanted the court not to invalidate the Medicaid expansion amendment, but to allow them to challenge the implementation of ballot measures once the state begins to implement them.
Sauer said Hatfield's argument that the state has to accept the expanded Medicaid population doesn't fit with the constitution.
"If that's their interpretation of Amendment 2, then it's a poison pill, it destroys Amendment 2," Sauer said. "Because it implies that it was never validly enacted in the first place. And that's what I said to Judge Beetem, I said 'That can't be right.'"
Several health care companies asked the court to reverse the Cole County decision and require the state expand Medicaid. The House of Representatives filed a brief with the court asking it uphold the Cole County decision, but House Democrats claimed they did not support that position.
Updates to Tuesday's case will be in ABC 17's 5 & 6 p.m. shows
