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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

MO Budget Project: Repeal-Replace "Throws Baby Out With Bathwater"

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Tuesday, September 26, 2017   

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Thoughtful, bipartisan collaboration is what's needed to improve the U.S. health-care system. That's the perspective of the independent Missouri Budget Project, which argues that a complex problem can't be addressed by a strategy that they say "throws the baby out with the bathwater."

Project executive director Amy Blouin says Medicaid works and so does the Children's Health Insurance Program or CHIP. She says the root causes of high-cost health insurance are found elsewhere.

"Pharmaceutical companies, for instance, that develop a drug and charge thousands of dollars each month to access a drug," she says. "That's not sustainable."

Blouin cites research from the Kaiser Family Foundation that estimates that about 500,000 Missourians would lose coverage under the Graham-Cassidy bill being considered this week by Congress. In addition, the research indicates that Missouri would lose approximately $700 million in funding by 2027.

Proponents of the latest repeal-and-replace legislation say it gives states more flexibility in creating their own systems while helping ensure more fiscal responsibility at the federal level. But Blouin argues that health care is far too complex to address with a rushed approach.

"I don't think that any of our senators probably set out to hurt people, but the proposal is being forced and therefore has consequences that I don't think are well thought through," she explains.

Blouin notes that more than 900,000 Missourians rely on Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.


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