The sponsor of a Republican proposal last session to reform and expand Medicaid is nearly ready to unveil a first draft of the new version of that bill.
Jay Barnes (left) is named Chairman of the Interim Committee on Medicaid Transformation by House Speaker Tim Jones (right). (Photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications.)
Last session Representative Jay Barnes (R-Jefferson City) proposed an overhaul to expand Medicaid eligibility for some and offered incentives for recipients for keeping their costs low, while putting others on subsidized private insurance.
Barnes says he could release a first draft of a bill for 2014 this week, and it will share some of the same concepts.
“We want to give Missouri the most market-based Medicaid system in the entire country. We want to turn recipients of Medicaid into active consumers who are participants in their own health care decisions and give them skin in the game just like every other Missourian on private health insurance has, to bring down costs and actually improve the results of care.”
Barnes chairs an interim committee on Medicaid reform and expansion. He says it will have a chance to pick apart his proposal, piece-by-piece.
“I’m not going to file a bill until this committee is over … and it that means I don’t file a bill until January, that’s what it means.”
Barnes says he believes Missouri can still access federal money for Medicaid expansion, and he thinks there is more than one way that can happen.
“We need a model that’s Missouri-specific … different from any other state. There’s a way to get there. We can increase this new, market-based Medicaid to 100 percent of the federal poverty level and then help subsidize health care plans for working Missourians between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level.”
The proposal will be unveiled online. The Interim Committee on Medicaid Transformation’s next meeting is October 26 at 1:00 at the State Capitol.
