Rural health care access and funding moves forward despite lengthy delays

Hi y’all! What a week it has been in Jefferson City. It’s hard to wrap up all the political drama that took place, including a multi-day filibuster, but the bottom line is that multiple measures to improve and protect rural health care access have moved forward in the Senate this week.

On Monday, the Senate passed Senate Bill 751, which opens up more entities’ abilities to participate in the 340B program, which was created to get more medicines and treatments into rural communities where the health care process can be spotty. The Senate also, for the first time this session, took up Senate Bill 748, which would extend Missouri’s federal reimbursement allowance (FRA) law.

This legislation has been a bit of a cloud hanging over the General Assembly all year long. All told, the FRA makes up a significant portion of our state operation budget. Health care entities have an option to contribute to the program, and that total statewide contribution opens up additional funds being provided by the federal government. Between the state’s portion and the federally matched portion, this equates to around $4.3 billion in the state budget that is primarily used to support rural health care. Obviously, this plays a big part in keeping hospitals and other medical resources up and running in our community.

In a state that is made up largely of rural communities, you wouldn’t think this type of bill would receive substantial opposition. For the most part, it didn’t. However, as it came up for debate on the Senate floor, a few senators wanted to leverage it to force other action by the Senate and governor regarding abortion affiliate funding and initiative petition (IP) reform. Now, a little side note here: I don’t disagree with these senators over the importance of this legislation. However, I do disagree with their strategy.

This tactic led to a filibuster that began on Tuesday morning and lasted until the early morning hours on Thursday, around 41-hours long. Again, I, and a majority of the Senate, support both of these bills. In fact, House Bill 2634 has already been passed by the General Assembly and is on the governor’s desk waiting to be signed. In my opinion, we could have gotten a lot more done this week had we stayed the course that was already laid out before us. With such a limited time remaining until the end of session, we’ve got to put our differences aside and get some of these policies passed that protect children, the elderly and our veterans; as well as, of course, the budget — our one constitutional duty.

In the end though, the bill was perfected and is expected to be third read and finally passed early next week and be sent over to the Missouri House of Representatives for their deliberation. Also, next week is the deadline to pass the budget. As mentioned, this is our lone constitutional obligation and I believe it is our most important responsibility.

It’s time we pull it together for the people of this state. What I like to say is work or get out of the way!