The Missouri House made changes to a bill on Mon. May 10, that would affect healthcare throughout the state.
One of the new amendments included expansion of Medicaid for new mothers. Currently, newborns are covered for a year while their mothers are only covered for three months.
The new amendment makes it so that new mothers are covered for a year, too. These amendments are included in HB 834.
The amendment was introduced to help lower Missouri’s maternal mortality rate, which is one of the highest in the country.
Representative Dale Wright also introduced an amendment that would help reduce the prices of pharmaceutical drugs.
Representative Mike Stephens said the amendment was a rare opportunity to address a problem that has been growing for years.
“Let us move forward with this, what is really landmark legislation, that has the potential of saving us countless millions of dollars, or billions of dollars over time", said Stephens.
The house also modified their vaccine passport ban proposal, so that it would not apply to private businesses.
