Clara Bates
Reporter, Missouri IndependentClara Bates covers social services and poverty for The Missouri Independent. She previously wrote for the Nevada Current, where she reported on labor violations in casinos, hurdles facing applicants for unemployment benefits and lax oversight of the funeral industry. She also wrote about vocational education for Democracy Journal. Bates is a graduate of Harvard College and is a Report for America corps member.
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A law passed by the Missouri General Assembly last year made sleeping on state-owned land a Class C misdemeanor. The legislation was modeled off a template by a conservative think tank, but housing advocates say it criminalizes homelessness and was improperly tacked onto an unrelated bill. -
Missouri’s share of children being disenrolled from Medicaid is third-highest among the states that report age breakouts. Nearly 40,000 kids total lost coverage — mostly for paperwork reasons — and it's not yet clear how many were able to cycle back or move to another program.
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There are currently 253 people in Missouri jails, who haven't been convicted of a crime, still waiting to be transferred to a state hospital for mental health treatment.
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The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch gave Missouri an "F" grade for its compliance with international child rights standards. Missouri still allows 16-year-olds to be married, and allows corporal punishment in public and private schools.
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After the Missouri legislature voted to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements last year, Planned Parenthood sued. A judge concluded it was unconstitutional for the state to deny access to funds available to other health care providers, but the attorney general's office is appealing.
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As some states wrap up this year’s summer food aid program, Missouri is still distributing last year’s benefits for children. The state also declined tens of millions in federal aid for low-income kids in part because officials lacked confidence they could disperse those benefits by the deadline.
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As Missouri and all states begin reassessing the eligibility of every Medicaid participant on their rolls, one major concern is that many are losing coverage due to paperwork issues rather than a lack of eligibility. Of those who lost coverage in June and July, three-quarters were for "procedural reasons."
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Federal law requires states conduct an unannounced comprehensive inspection for each long-term care facility at least every 15 months to assess compliance with health and safety rules. Of the 510 nursing homes in Missouri, 126 have not been inspected in at least two years — one of the longest backlogs in the country.
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Over 1 million Missourians on Medicaid will have their eligibility checked between now and next May. Many have never undergone the process before, and hundreds of thousands are project to lose coverage — mostly because of paperwork problems.
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A July report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, a national policy group, found that 19 of Missouri’s 57 rural hospitals are at risk of shuttering because of “serious financial problems.”
