It looks like Rep. Dr. Rob Schaaf can stop worrying.

The St. Joseph Republican walked into this reporter’s Jefferson City office on Thursday concerned his bill to enact Insure Missouri might not ever come up for debate.

Floor consideration became a moot point tonight when lawmakers slashed funding for the initiative.

Check out the below Associated Press report, which describes how a budget conference committee removed all funding for Gov. Matt Blunt’s plan to expand Medicaid eligibility.

Dr. Schaaf early this year surfaced as one of the most vocal opponents to Insure Missouri, challenging Mr. Blunt’s authority to enact the plan without legislative approval. Mr. Blunt held off on Insure Missouri’s implementation, set for March, so that legislators could come to a consensus and work out a proposal.

The healthcare transformation committee Dr. Schaaf chairs, however, added on controversial concepts to the Insure Missouri bill, including components to increase hospital competition that the Missouri Hospital Association has adamantly opposed.

The group’s lobbying efforts had put into question the underlying bill’s ultimate chances of passage.

Dr. Schaaf didn’t immediately return phone calls from the News-Press Monday night.

From the Associated press on April 28, 2008:

Insure Missouri cut from budget

By DAVID A. LIEB

Associated Press Writer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Spending for Gov. Matt Blunt’s “Insure Missouri” program got eliminated from the budget Monday night by legislative negotiators, ensuring a second setback for the governor who had first planned to start the program this spring, then set his sights for summer.

Without any money in the budget, the plan to expand government-subsidized health care to low-income workers cannot take effect — even if the new program were authorized by lawmakers under separate legislation.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation Monday that would create a revised version of Insure Missouri that eventually could cover a projected 200,000 Missourians currently lacking insurance. But House Speaker Rod Jetton has said that bill has no chance of passing without significant changes. The legislative session ends May 16.

Acknowledging the fading prospects of the legislation, House and Senate budget negotiators eliminated the $353 million that had been set aside for Insure Missouri for the budget year starting July 1. Even that amount had been less than the $375 million Blunt had requested.

House Budget Chairman Allen Icet and Senate Appropriations Chairman Gary Nodler said the governor’s office could ask for the money later if the bill authorizing the program were to pass. But unless Blunt were to call a special legislative session this year, lawmakers won’t consider spending items again until 2009 — and by then, Missouri will have a new governor.

Blunt’s director of the Department of Social Services expressed disappointment as she left the committee room where lawmakers had eliminated the Insure Missouri spending.

“While we would have liked to have gotten it going, and were certainly ready to launch, it’s worthy of this kind of public scrutiny and debate, and I’m still hopeful,” said director Deborah Scott.

As revised by lawmakers, Insure Missouri would pay the health insurance premiums for people earning up to 225 percent of the poverty level, or $47,700 for a family of four. The participants would have to put up to $1,000 annually into health savings accounts, which would be used to meet their insurance deductibles.

The insurance plan would provide at least $500 of preventive care per year, regardless of whether participants had met their insurance deductibles.

Jetton, R-Marble Hill, and House bill sponsor Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, insist the Insure Missouri legislation must be linked to an overhaul of the state approval process for new hospitals, nursing homes and medical equipment. They claim the current process stifles competition, which they claim can lower costs for consumers. Without changes to the certificate-of-need approval process, they have said the Insure Missouri legislation will not even come up for debate in the House.

But the Missouri Hospital Association, which was instrumental in developing Blunt’s original proposal, is adamantly opposed to changing Missouri’s certificate-of-need process for new medical centers. While backing changes to the approval process for new hospitals, Blunt does not want it tied be to — or bog down — the Insure Missouri proposal.

Summing up the situation Friday, Jetton had declared Insure Missouri to be “on life-support.”

When he outlined it in September, Blunt had intended to start enrolling participants in Insure Missouri by early spring. But he delayed that after Schaaf and some other Republican and Democratic House members questioned Blunt’s authority to start the program and criticized its structure, scope and cost.

Some House Republicans thought Blunt’s idea was too expansive, potentially leading to a costly entitlement in future years. But some House Democrats complained it did not go far enough because it did not restore coverage to all of those who had been cut from the Medicaid program as part of a 2005 budget savings by Blunt and the Republican-led Legislature.