House votes to end tax break for low-income seniors, disabled, to fund in-home care for elderly, disabled

The Missouri House has voted to end a tax break for low-income seniors and disabled residents who live in rental housing.

Backers say the proposal will allow the legislature to fund a Medicaid program that provides in-home care to poor elderly and disabled people.  Opponents say there were other places to look for the approximately $55-million for that program.

House Committee Bill 3 narrowly passed the House, 85-72, and now goes to the state Senate.

The plan was a response to Governor Eric Greitens’ budget proposal that would cut the Medicaid program by adjusting a point system used to determine when a patient is eligible for in-home or nursing home care based on his or her needs.

Hermann Republican Justin Alferman is the vice chairman of the House Budget committee.  He said ending the tax break was necessary to help people like a woman he visited at a nursing home in Hermann, who recently turned 100.

“She grabbed my arm and said, ‘I need the services to stay in this home.  (If) we go to 27, I’ve already been assessed – I’m at 21 points – I will be kicked out of this nursing home,’” said Alferman.  “She probably wouldn’t have been kicked out, but that’s beside the point.  She said, ‘People like me who need care at this point level are not going to be able to get the services that they need if we go to 27.’”

Representative Donna Lichtenegger (R-Cape Girardeau) said some people who benefit from both programs told her passing HCB 3 was the right thing to do.

“They did so because they know that getting their points back to 21 was more important that getting a tax break on the rent because the drugs are costing them much more than the 500-and-whatever dollars that they would get back from the tax credit,” said Lichtenegger.

Lawmakers who opposed HCB 3 came from both parties.  Many among them said they support restoring money to the Medicaid program but they believe there are other places from which to take money to do it.

Joplin Republican Bill White said he could not support it cutting the tax credit.

“When you’re at your senior centers, you talk to these people, there are people you’re going to meet when you go to those that this is the difference between them getting to stay independent, in a place where they’re not living in a home where they’re sharing a room with somebody that they don’t know, where they don’t have their own furniture, where they don’t have anything of their own really but the clothes they have on, that isn’t really very private because people wander in and out of your room – it’s a dignity component.  They’re going to lose that,” said White.

Columbia Representative Kip Kendrick (D) said the legislature was being presented with a “false choice,” brought on by measures passed by the legislature in recent years.

“When you look at Missouri’s economy we’ve actually done fairly well over the last few years.  We’ve definitely seen some improvements.  We’ve seen unemployment tick down, we’ve seen wages tick up.  We’re not necessarily in an economic downturn – we’re actually recovering, still.  We should not be having to cut $450-million out of our budget … but it is decisions we have made and people before us have made,” said Kendrick.

The bill goes to the Senate which will consider whether to pass it and incorporate it into its budget plan.  The House, meanwhile, will resume after the legislative spring break working on the budget proposal it will send the Senate.