A compromise has been reached to move the budget process along and complete the $23 billion state budget by tomorrow evening, but whether it will expand health care remains to be seen.

The House rejected on a party-line vote HB 11 , the social services budget that contained a provision to expand Medicaid to cover an additional 35,000 Missourians. The expansion relied on an additional hospital tax; still House Republicans saw it as an unnecessary expansion of Medicaid. After the rejection of HB 11, House Budget Committee Chairman Allen Icet (R-Wildwood) requested the Senate return to the negotiating table.

Senate-House budget negotiators reconvened in the Legislative Library at the Capitol in an effort to hammer out a compromise that could keep the budget process moving while considering an expansion of health care coverage. Negotiators have agreed to remove an expansion of Medicaid in the social services budget, which would allow HB 11 to pass the House. In exchange, the House has agreed to consider SB 306 , a more market-drive expansion of health care.

House Budget Committee Chairman Allen Icet of Wildwood says it’s an effort to resolve a problem that threatened the budget process. He said it was a compromise between doing nothing after the rejection of HB 11 in the House and the Senate position of expanding Medicaid.

"We’re agreeing to try to do something through SB 306, to reach that compromise," Icet told reporters after the conference committee meeting.

Majority House Republicans rejected the proposed Medicaid expansion, but Democrat Chris Kelly of Columbia, a House budget negotiator, agreed to the deal even though it’s unsure what the results might be.

"I think there are people of good faith on the other side; Republicans of good faith," said Kelly. "They have to move a difficult caucus on this. And so, we can’t drop the ball this early."

The question remains: can Icet deliver Republican votes for the Senate bill to expand health care?

"I will certainly try, because I’ve agreed to this," said Icet.

House Majority Floor Leader Steve Tilley (R-Perryville) told reporters he plans to bring SB 306 before the House Monday and send it to conference to see if an agreement can be reached that is acceptable to the House, the Senate and the governor’s office.

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (1:15 MP3)

Emotional, heated, and harsh all describe debate on the House floor as the House rejects a proposed expansion of Medicaid contained in the social services budget bill.

Republicans in the House use their majority muscle to defeat HB 11, the social services budget bill that contained an expansion of Medicaid. The proposed expansion relied on an increase in the tax paid by Missouri hospitals. The $52.6 million raised through the increased hospital tax would be used to draw down $94.2 million in federal funds to provide coverage for Missourians making up to 50% of the federal poverty level, approximately 35,000 more Missourians.

Despite the fact that the proposal relied on an increase hospital tax, not an increase in General Revenue dollars, Republicans attacked it as an unnecessary expansion of Welfare.

Opposition by Republicans to HB 11 was well known prior to the bill coming to the floor for debate.

Rep. Mary Still, a Democrat from Columbia, noted the packed chamber prior to the vote.

"And it as if the majority party has come in for the kill," Still said of Republicans. "And it turns my stomach."

The House defeated the measure 75-85 on a mostly party-line vote.

Rep. Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City) spoke on the floor after exchanges had already gotten heated. He turned up the heat even more, refusing to call the proposal an expansion of Medicaid.

"In reality, it simply is a restoration of all the mistakes that were made in 2005," Talboy said, referring to cuts to Medicaid House Republicans pushed through that year to balance the state budget. "And the cruel and unchristian and unfair tax cuts…"

With the use of the term "unchristian" boos descended from Republicans, nearly drowning out Talboy and Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt (R-Blue Springs) who he was debating.

Republican Tim Jones of Eureka even took note of the tenor of debate before speaking on the floor.

"Mr. Speaker, it sounded a little bit more like the House of Commons here today," Jones said, referring to the daily question period in Britain’s House of Commons which is often very lively, sometime raucous.

House Budget Chairman Allen Icet (R-Wildwood) brought the conference committee report of HB 11 to the floor for debate, even though he refused to sign the report. No House Republicans on the conference committee signed the report, a sign they didn’t agree to its contents.

Icet told colleagues he couldn’t accept the Medicaid expansion in the bill.

"I filed the bill, because I wanted to give the body the opportunity to debate the bill," Icet said to close debate on the bill. "But, Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I encourage my colleagues to vote against HB 11"

After the House rejected the bill, Icet moved to return to a conference with Senate budget negotiators, which the House agreed to and the Senate accepted. Conference members worked out a compromise designed to move the budget process along so it can be completed by the Friday 6pm deadline. The House will consider than compromise Thursday morning. The deal puts the question of health care expansion off until next week, when the House and Senate will try to reach an agreement on SB 306 .

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (1:11 MP3)