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More than 52,000 kids were kicked off Missouri Medicaid from June to September
More than 52,000 Missouri children have been kicked off of Medicaid in the first four months of renewed eligibility checks, though the state isn’t sure how many of those kids have managed to re-enroll. At Tuesday’s quarterly meeting of the board that oversees Missouri’s Medicaid program, the MO HealthNet oversight committee, concerns about the number […]
Missouri-based camp blames its insurance company for withholding info about sexual abuse
A Branson-area Christian summer camp accused of covering up years of sexual abuse of its students is suing its insurance company, claiming it threatened to deny coverage if information about abuse was made public. Kanakuk Kamps filed a cross claim last month against ACE American Insurance Co. as part of a 2022 lawsuit filed by […]
‘Broken system’: Call center backlogs impede Missouri families seeking food assistance
Treasure Dowell has called Missouri’s social services department three times a day for nearly a month and has yet to speak to a human being. Sometimes she is automatically disconnected hours before the call center closes because it has reached capacity for the day. Other times she waits hours, her phone on speaker atop the […]
Refugees came to Noel for opportunity. Tyson’s plant closure leaves their futures uncertain
NOEL, Mo. — On a Sunday afternoon in rural southwest Missouri, dozens of friends and family gather at a modest one-story home to sing and celebrate in the language of their homeland, more than 8,000 miles away. Some arrive from church, crowding into a living room to celebrate two brothers — one turning 7 and […]
260 Missourians are waiting in jails for mental health services
There are currently 260 people in Missouri jails waiting to be transferred to a hospital for mental health treatment — a slight uptick from last month, as state officials work to develop plans for the “jail-based competency restoration” program approved by the legislature this year. Those 260 people were arrested, deemed unfit to stand trial […]
Advocacy group tells feds Missouri’s proposed disability changes could violate law
The federally-funded organization responsible for protecting the rights of people with disabilities in Missouri believes a proposed change in how the state pays for at-home care could violate the law. Missouri Protection and Advocacy Services, which was established in 1977, said in a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it is […]
Missouri Supreme Court weighs constitutionality of law banning sleeping on public land
The Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments over the constitutionality of a wide-ranging law passed by the legislature last year banning sleeping on public land. Missouri lawmakers made sleeping on state-owned land a Class C misdemeanor, along with a slew of other provisions such as restricting state funding for permanent supportive housing in favor […]
Nearly half of all Missouri Medicaid terminations in last three months have been children
Another 12,833 children were removed from the state’s Medicaid program in August — more than three-quarters of whom were terminated because of paperwork issues rather than being determined ineligible. August was the third month of the state reassessing the eligibility of every Medicaid participant, after a three year COVID-era pause on the practice. The process […]
‘Trying to set the example’: Wentzville GM strike enters its second week
WENTZVILLE — Adam Purfeerst has been standing along the edge of Highway A in Wentzville for hours, lifting his picket sign and waving to passing drivers, whose staccato honks and loud blares punctuate the Thursday afternoon. “We’re fighting for the working class in general,” said Purfeest, a General Motors assembly line worker for the last […]
Missourians wait an average of 8 months in jail for court-ordered mental health services
Missourians who are arrested, deemed unfit to stand trial and ordered into mental health treatment are now detained in jail for an average of eight months before being transferred to a mental health facility. And that’s “some good news,” Nora Bock, director of the Missouri Department of Mental Health’s Division of Behavioral Health, said during […]
Missouri lags behind most states for children’s rights, advocacy group finds
A recent report by an international human rights group ranked Missouri in the bottom third of all states for child rights, in part because Missouri still allows child marriage and corporal punishment in schools. The report, published by the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, measured every state’s laws against the standards of the Convention on […]
Missouri mental health department urged to abandon at-home care funding freeze
A disability-rights advocate pleaded with Missouri mental health officials Thursday not to implement a policy change that could freeze pay rates for at-home caregivers relied upon by more than 3,000 individuals around the state. At issue is a decision by the Missouri Department of Mental Health to change how it calculates rates for a program […]