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St. Louis Business & Civic Leaders,
We need your help on an urgent public policy priority.
Next week, the Missouri Senate is expected to take up the FY 2022 budget and decide whether to fund the voter-approved expansion of Medicaid. It is urgent that Missouri State Senators hear directly from business leaders about how important Medicaid expansion is to create jobs and grow our state’s economy. Medicaid expansion will bring billions of dollars in economic output and thousands of jobs to Missouri.
We need you to make two calls this week to support Medicaid expansion:
- First, please contact Senate Appropriations Chairman Dan Hegeman at (573) 751-1415 and urge him to fund Medicaid expansion.
- Second, please contact your local State Senator to urge them to support expansion as well. Find your Senator using the Legislator Lookup tool here.
Last year, Missouri voters chose to become the 38th state to expand Medicaid and provide healthcare coverage to over 230,000 lower-income Missourians. Greater St. Louis, Inc. strongly supports Medicaid expansion as a proven job creator and one of the solutions called for in the Ferguson Commission report to achieve greater equity in our community. Governor Mike Parson included funding for the voter-approved expansion in his proposed budget. Unfortunately, this funding was stripped from the budget by the House of Representatives.
The economic benefits of Medicaid expansion are very real. From 2022 to 2026, Missouri could see an annual increase of more than 16,000 new jobs. Over the same period, the state could also see an average annual increase of $2.5 billion in economic output, $1.6 billion in GDP, and $1.1 billion in personal income.
By allocating $130 million of general revenue to fund expansion, the state would have been able to draw down $1.65 billion in federal funds. This would be a transformative investment in job creation and economic growth in Missouri.
Please reach out to Adam Kazda, Director of Government Relations at adam@greaterstlinc.com if you have any questions. Thank you for your support.