Law cuts Medicaid for uninsured children

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., April 3 (UPI) -- Each month, about 800 Missouri children lose Medicaid because of a new law that drops their coverage if their parents' employers offer "affordable" insurance.

In the past six months, the state law has forced nearly 5,000 children from the Children's Health Insurance Program, an extension of Medicaid for middle-income families, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported.

Concern centers on what's known as the affordability test. In a single-parent family with a $20,000 annual income and one child, Medicaid costs $16 a month, or 1 percent of income. But the child is ineligible for Medicaid if private insurance is available for $342 a month -- 21 percent of the family's income.

Before Republicans took over the Legislature in 2002 and the governor's mansion in 2004, the philosophy regarding health insurance was different.

In 1998, under Democratic leadership, MC+ for Kids, one of the broadest children's health programs in the country, was established to provide health insurance to Missouri families without access to affordable heath insurance. It covered approximately 90,000 uninsured children.

The program cost taxpayers on average $1,336 a year per child, accounting for 9 percent of Medicaid's participants but 2.2 percent of the overall cost.

Critics have said the program discourages personal responsibility and hooks recipients on welfare.

Asked whether the affordability test was fair, Jessica Robinson, a spokesman for Gov. Matt Blunt said: "Fairness is a relative term and, really, an arbitrary question that I'm not in a position to answer."