Governor visits local clinic, promotes health agreement

Gov. Jay Nixon touted an agreement with the Missouri Hospital Association that will use federal funding to provide health care to thousands of Missouri parents Monday as he toured Katy Trail Community Health Center.

Under the agreement, the Missouri Hospital Association will contribute an additional $52.5 million annually to provide health care to parents. The investment, coming from funds hospitals already receive for providing uncompensated care to uninsured patients, will allow the state to draw about $93 million in health-care matching funds from the federal government.

The boost in state and federal funds will provide coverage for an additional 34,800 parents in the state.

“We sit here with a 25-year high in unemployment and continuing stress on all sorts of health care and other services, and clinics like this all across the state are on the front line of making a difference,” Nixon said. “We want to work with the Legislature to expand the available tools and dollars, especially those federal dollars, which are just there for the picking.”

To make the federal funding available, however, the state Legislature would first have to increase the Medicaid eligibility threshold to 50 percent of the federal poverty level for the 2010 fiscal year budget. In order to be eligible for Medicaid under current regulations, parents must make less than about 20 percent of the federal poverty level.

The Medicaid eligibility expansion is not included in the House version of the budget that was proposed just before lawmakers went on break.

“If the Legislature adopts it, it would give us $145 million more and move us from 20 percent to 50 percent of the federal poverty level with not a single penny of state dollars,” Nixon said. “We are very hopeful that the Legislature will join us. We are very unique, as a state, to be able to move that much without a single penny of general revenue being expended.”

Chris Stewart, executive director of the health center, estimated that changing the Medicaid eligibility threshold would add coverage for about 500 patients at the clinic.

Adding coverage would help relieve some of the burden placed on the health center as the number of uncompensated cases climbs each year. For each of first three years since the center opened, the number of people treated has increased about 30 percent while the percentage of uncompensated cases has remained at about 40, which means the center is treating hundreds more patients each year with the same amount of federal funding.

It costs the center an average of $525 annually for each uninsured patient treated. In 2007, the federal grant covered $450 per patient, but that dropped to $350 in 2008.

Nixon also promoted the state’s continued commitment to the presumptive eligibility program during his visit. The program presumes children are eligible to enroll for Medicaid if they qualify under reduced standards. The only information required for eligibility is the child’s age, community of residence and family’s income.

Nixon said the program provides children with needed care, expedites patients’ search for treatment and allows the state to utilize more available federal money.

“There is a presumptive eligibility for those that appear to meet the income guidelines, and that has led to a tremendous ability statewide to leverage that $13 million in the budget into tens of millions of federal dollars in clinics like this across the state,” Nixon said.

State funding for the program is also absent from the House’s proposed 2010 budget. Eliminating the program could have a significant impact at Katy Trail Health Center, Stewart said.

“Our health center has enrolled more kids than any other in the state (through the presumptive eligibility program),” Stewart said.

Continuing to leverage these programs to maximize federal money coming into the state will be an important step in correcting the state’s economy, which is experiencing a 25-year high in unemployment and struggling to continue funding vital services, Nixon said.

“Both of those economic tools we think are important as we make a correction and get this economy turned around,” Nixon said.