Missouri special session to extend Medicaid hospital tax hinges on compromise
(The Center Square) – Missouri Republicans say they have brokered a tentative compromise in their impasse over extending a Medicaid hospital tax that bars use of public monies for some contraceptive medications and devices, but doesn’t ban Planned Parenthood from being a Medicaid provider.
As a result, state lawmakers are preparing to head back to Jefferson City next week for a special session on extending the state’s federal reimbursement allowance (FRA) tax before the new fiscal year begins July 1.
After meeting with Senate Republicans for more than an hour Tuesday, Gov. Mike Parson is expected to call no later than Friday for a special session next week. He had not done so by mid-day Thursday.
Missouri’s recently concluded legislative session featured heated contention over Medicaid funding as lawmakers decided not to fund the expansion a small majority of voters approved in August. A federal lawsuit to compel the state to fund Medicaid expansion goes to trial in Cole County Friday.
Lawmakers also adjourned without approving a bill to extend the FRA, a hospital tax that pays for about one-third of Missouri’s $11 billion Medicaid program. Extending the FRA would allow the state to collect $1.28 billion in hospital taxes to draw $2.391 billion in federal Medicaid funding each of the next two years.
Missouri Medicaid Director Kirk Matthews said last month that without the FRA extension, the “existence of the (Medicaid) program will be threatened by the end of the year.”
The FRA itself doesn’t expire until Sept. 30, but its extension must be passed by July 4 to be implemented Oct. 1 without an emergency clause.
Missouri lawmakers have renewed the FRA without contention 16 times since it was created in 1992.
During the regular session, conservatives led by Sens. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, and Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, objected to using Medicaid monies for contraception and derailed the extension.
Wieland attached an amendment to the FRA-extension measure, Senate Bill 1, that bans use of FRA funds for drugs or devices “that may cause the destruction of, or prevent the implantation of, an unborn child” and bars the use of taxpayer money for “contraceptive treatments.”
Onder added an amendment to ban any organization with affiliates that perform abortions, namely Planned Parenthood, from the state’s Medicaid provider list.
The amendments stalled SB 1’s advance and since then, lawmakers have clamored for Parson to call an FRA extension special session.
But the governor has said he won’t call a special session without “a solution” on the table.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, told reporters that the tentative compromise bans several medications, some that end pregnancy and some that prevent fertilization, as well as intrauterine devices (IUDs), but doesn’t blacklist Planned Parenthood.
Onder said talk of “a grand compromise” is exaggerated.
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