By Maria Hickey, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – A new report finds more than 114,000 people left Missouri's Medicaid rolls in the year following legislative cuts and changes to the program.
The Missouri Budget Project and Missouri Association for Social Welfare released the report Tuesday based on state statistics from August of 2005 to August of this year.
Amy Blouin, executive director of the Missouri Budget Project, says working parents were the hardest hit with about $68,000 losing Medicaid coverage.
"We now require working parents to make no more than $292 a month for a family of three to qualify for health care assistance in Missouri and that was dramatic," Blouin said.
The legislation passed last year also requires the current Medicaid program to be overhauled by 2008.
Blouin says the report is meant to give legislators a sense of the impact of the cuts as they plan for the program's future.