Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)

Navigators help people enroll in Medicaid and insurance on the federal marketplace. Federal funding cuts by the Trump administration mean Kansas will have less navigators.

The federal spending cuts proposed by the Republican-controlled Congress could lead to tens of thousands of jobs lost across Missouri and Kansas health care systems and food suppliers, a new study found.

U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison, an Ozark Republican, also took a negative view of town hall meetings, claiming that "only political nutjobs show up.” His comments come after several GOP lawmakers faced angry crowds criticizing federal job reductions.

MO HealthNet covers more than 1.3 million, or one in five people in the state, across different eligibility groups. The majority of Missouri's Medicaid funding, including almost all of its expansion money, comes from the federal government.

More than 400,000 of Missouri's nearly 1.4 million Medicaid recipients lost coverage after the end of the COVID public health emergency. Almost half were children — one of the highest rates in the nation.

Missouri officials doubt the state could stop accepting Medicaid expansion applicants if the federal government provides less money. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley says he'd be "really concerned" about significant Medicaid cuts in a budget bill.

The Republican-sponsored constitutional amendment would require able-bodied Medicaid participants ages 19 to 49 to prove they are working as a condition for receiving health coverage. Tens of thousands of patients lost coverage in other states that implemented similar requirements.

Twenty states — including Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska — have joined a lawsuit suing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over a federal requirement increasing minimum staffing levels for nursing homes.

Around this time last year, a quarter of Missouri nursing homes hadn’t been inspected in at least two years. Now the number is closer to 3%, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.

A St. Louis nursing home’s overnight closure in late 2023 upended the lives of more than 170 residents and families. Advocates and politicians called for its directors to be held accountable, but a $56,000 fine from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could be the only penalty.

The federal government told Missouri it is concerned the state is not doing enough to “achieve and sustain” compliance with federal rules on Medicaid and CHIP. In Missouri, 72% of insurance applications took more than 45 days to process — the worst in the U.S.

A federal rule will require long-term care facilities to have a minimum number of nursing staff on hand at all times to take care of residents.