Report: Medicaid expansion would aid working Missourians

A report released today by Washington, D.C.-based health care consumer advocacy group Families USA finds Medicaid expansion in Missouri would most benefit the working population.

According to the report, 60 percent of those with income up to 138 percent of poverty level - $27,310 for a family of three in 2014 - are employed but uninsured.

The report identifies the top nine occupations that stand to benefit from Medicaid expansion in Missouri:

• 34,000 food service workers, including fast-food workers, cooks and waitresses;
• 24,000 sales workers, including cashiers, retail salespeople and travel agents;
• *22,000 cleaning and maintenance workers, such as housekeepers, janitors and landscapers;
• 21,000 office and administrative support, including hotel desk clerks, office clerks and messengers;
• 18,000 transportation workers, including bus and taxi drivers, as well as parking attendants;
• 18,000 construction employees, including carpenters, laborers and painters;
• 15,000 personal care workers, including barbers, child care workers and personal care aides;
• 14,000 production workers, including butchers, laundry workers and tailors;
• 12,0000 health care support workers, such as home health aides, nursing aides and dental assistants; and
• 31,000 others.

According to Families USA, Missouri's current Medicaid program only covers parents with extremely low incomes, those with a family income of no more than 24 percent of poverty, which is $4,750 a year for a family of three.

Gov. Jay Nixon and groups such as the Missouri Chamber of Commerce support Medicaid expansion in the state. An analysis performed earlier this year by the Missouri Research and Information Center found expanding Medicaid eligiblity would create 23,868 jobs, or $9.9 billion in new wages, and $14.6 billion in new gross state product 2015-22, according to Springfield Business Journal archives.