Find out more about health care in Missouri
The policy decisions made in Jefferson City and Washington, D.C., affect the health care delivered in your community. Missouri Health Matters offers both original research and links to the best outside sources to help shape the conversation about health care in your community and statewide.
Most Recent
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Missouri’s Medicaid Expansion Ballot Initiative Gains Momentum
December 22, 2019
The petition to put a Medicaid expansion in Missouri to a statewide vote has garnered more than 25% of the needed signatures to place the measure on the November 2020 ballot, according to campaign officials. The effort to extend eligibility for the state-sponsored health insurance program to those making up to $18,000 a year also has […]
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Missouri Leads Nation In Rising Numbers Of Uninsured Children
December 19, 2019
Missouri had the highest increase in the rate of uninsured children in the nation over the two-year period that ended in 2018, according to a study from Georgetown University. In 2018, 5.3% of Missouri children under age 6 were uninsured, up from 3.6% two years earlier. Nationwide, uninsured rates in that age group rose to more than […]
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Hardworking Missourians Need Access to Healthcare
December 10, 2019
Healthcare for Missouri, a coalition of voters and patients, medical professionals, business leaders, and organizations, is committed to expanding access to healthcare to more than 200,000 hardworking Missourians. Together, we can collect the more than 172,000 signatures needed to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot. Find a petition signing event near you. More Resources How […]
POSTED IN Medicaid Reform, Resources Read More -
Medicaid Covers a Million Fewer Children. Baby Elijah Was One of Them.
October 22, 2019
Nationwide, more than a million children disappeared from the rolls of the two main state-federal health programs for lower-income children, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, between December 2017 and June, the most recent month with complete data. Some state and federal officials have portrayed the drop — 3 percent of enrolled children — […]
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CDC Intensifies Warnings About Vaping Illness As Cases Top 1,000
October 3, 2019
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intensified its warnings about the risks of vaping, as the number of patients with vaping-related illness continues to climb. The case count has reached 1,080, the agency announced Thursday. There have been 18 deaths in 15 states, and more deaths are being investigated. All patients reported a history […]
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State Border Splits Neighbors Into Medicaid Haves And Have-Nots
October 1, 2019
Patricia Powers went a few years without health insurance and was unable to afford regular doctor visits. So the Missouri resident, who lives near St. Louis, had no idea that cancerous tumors were silently growing in both of her breasts. If Powers lived just across the Mississippi River in neighboring Illinois, she would have qualified […]
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‘Out Here, It’s Just Me’: In The Medical Desert Of Rural America, One Doctor For 11,000 Square Miles
September 28, 2019
In the medical desert that has become rural America, nothing is more basic or more essential than access to doctors, but they are increasingly difficult to find. The federal government now designates nearly 80 percent of rural America as “medically underserved.” It is home to 20 percent of the U.S. population but fewer than 10 percent of its […]
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Rural Residents Are Less Likely To Develop Colon Cancer, But More Likely To Die From It
September 22, 2019
Across the country, people who live in rural areas are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer than city dwellers, according to a new study published in the Journal of Rural Health. Patients living in counties far from populated cities and suburbs were 1.23 times more likely to be diagnosed with non-curable, stage […]
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Nine Suspected Vaping-Related Illnesses In Missouri, Two Hospitalized At Children’s Hospital
September 13, 2019
Two cases of lung illness associated with the use of e-cigarettes have been reported in Missouri over the past two weeks, and seven more possible cases are under investigation, state health department officials said in a news release Thursday. Read more from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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As Missouri Trims Its Medicaid Rolls, Families Say They’ve Been Kicked Off Unfairly
August 29, 2019
In recent months, eligible families across the state say they’ve been arriving at doctors’ appointments to learn their children have been unwittingly dropped from the program and are unable to receive the required medical care. Health care providers, advocates for children and parents raised an alarm when Missouri’s Medicaid enrollment began to decrease steadily last year. Between […]
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