Missouri House Democrats discuss legislation aimed at lifting the requirement that a doctor perform a pelvic exam before conducting a medicine-induced abortion.
VIDEO: Porter Wagoner inducted into Hall of Famous Missourians
The latest inductee into the Hall of Famous Missourians is a country music legend from Missouri whose career spanned decades.
Porter Wagoner was born in Howell County in 1927. Wagoner was known for his flashy, rhinestone covered suits; a boisterous personality on stage; for his television show that spanned two decades; and for launching the career of another country legend, Dolly Parton.
Wagoner’s career took off after he sang on a local radio station out of the grocery store where he worked as a meat cutter. From there he was hired by Springfield radio station KWTO and then signed with RCA Records.
His hits included Green, Green Grass of Home; The Carroll County Accident; and Misery Loves Company. He also wrote songs that were hits for other artists and recorded a series of top ten duets with Parton, including Please Don’t Stop Loving Me, which became a number one hit in 1974.
Wagoner joins other famous Missourians including Mark Twain, Dred Scott, and Jack Buck in the Hall.
The Hall is located in the third floor Rotunda in the Capitol, between the House and Senate Chambers.
House panel told Missouri is ready for coronavirus
A Missouri House panel today heard from three doctors, including the Director of the Department of Health and Senior Services, about how ready the state is for the coronavirus.
Legislators heard Missouri is very prepared and that the best thing Missourians can do to prevent the disease from spreading is wash their hands.
“We have been meeting daily since January 27,” DHSS Director Randall Williams told lawmakers. “I believe we are very well prepared. Our motto is, ‘Hope for the best, prepare for the worst,’ and we think we are prepared for both.”
More than 100 people had been confirmed to have the coronavirus in the United States and it is responsible for six deaths in this country as of Monday afternoon. The disease has killed more than 3,000 people globally. House Speaker Elijah Haahr (R-Springfield) created the House Special Committee on Disease Control and Prevention to assess Missouri’s readiness for the disease to appear here.
Doctor Stevan Whitt with the University of Missouri Health System deals with infectious diseases. He told committee chairman Jonathan Patterson (R-Lees Summit) the current rates of infections and deaths suggest a 3.3-percent mortality rate with coronavirus.
“Which means you have about a 97-percent rate of survival even if you get the virus,” said Whitt.
“And that number’s probably even lower given that there’s been underreporting of the cases,” said Patterson.
Williams noted that the mortality rate is twenty times greater than the flu.
“It’s two percent and the flu is one in 1,000, so you’re talking about two out of 100 versus one in 1,000, so that’s concerning,” said Williams.
No cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Missouri. Williams, who has been in regular contact with federal officials and his counterparts from other states, said samples from fewer than 15 patients in Missouri are being tested for the virus, while California has tested more than 460 people.
Whitt said corona is very much like the common cold or flu in the symptoms that a person presents.
“You get it from coughing, sneezing, runny nose; all the usual things, contact, close contact with somebody who’s had it, inhalation of droplets – especially a large amount of droplets from somebody who you’re very close to, distance wise,” said Whitt. “We know that cases can be everywhere from completely asymptomatic to death. Most of the deaths are associated with lung involvement and inability to appropriately oxygenate, similar to influenza.”
The doctors told lawmakers that the state has a plan in place for dealing with a pandemic and those plans were made available to lawmakers and the media. They also said the best things the public can do to protect against coronavirus and stem its spread are the same things commonly recommended to keep healthy.
“If you’re sick, please stay at home. If you’re sick and need to go see a doctor please check in, tell them about your symptoms. Usually you’ll be given a mask if part of your symptoms are fever, cough, and/or shortness of breath, and please put on the mask,” said Whitt. “If you’re sick and do not need to be in the hospital or see a doctor just stay home, call in sick. I would encourage [legislators] to help us encourage employers to give very lenient practices to people who are sick and want to stay home during this time.”
Whitt said another concern is the “classic hoarding mentality” applying to things like masks. He said for people who are not sick to wear those affords them very little protection.
“They protect mostly the person from disseminating the disease. For instance the regular surgical masks that are the recommended masks for people who are ill, they don’t really filter air. What they do is they trap particles … that’s what happens when you cough into one, that’s what happens when you sneeze into one,” said Whitt. “If, on the other hand, the person who is the source of infection is not wearing the mask but you are, you still breathe around the edges, you still breathe around the gaps in the top around your nose. It’s not very protective for individuals who are not sick. It’s protective of groups of people to put it on the sick person.”
The doctors also recommended that those who haven’t gotten a flu shot go ahead and do so, as cases of the flu continue to rise.
Williams said the state health lab in Jefferson City now has the capability to test for coronavirus and have a result in six hours.
Doctors said another concern if the disease reaches Missouri will be in hospital and clinic staffing if staff members begin getting sick.
Speaker Haahr said the legislature is prepared to act as needed to support the response to coronavirus, including by appropriating funds or giving authority for the spending of federal funds. He said the citizens of Missouri should know their government is prepared to protect them from the virus, and said he has complete faith in Williams to head up the state’s response.
The committee will hold additional hearings on an as-needed basis.
Missouri House leaders discuss corona virus following committee hearing
The Missouri House’s Special Committee on Disease Control and Prevention held its first hearing today discussing Missouri’s level of preparedness for the corona virus. Leadership and committee members fielded questions from the media following that hearing.
Missouri House votes to exempt private and religious schools from minimum wage law
The Missouri House has voted to exempt private and religious schools from the state’s minimum wage law approved by voters in 2018. The bill would extend the exemption that already applies to public institutions, including public schools.
Voters passed a plan that will increase the minimum wage for hourly workers by 85-cents an hour each year until 2023, when it would reach $12 an hour. It is currently set at $9.45 an hour.
“Already private schools and religious schools have received price increases from vendors because of the new law and many could be threatened to even stay in existence. They have put building processes and plans on hold because of the minimum wage,” said bill sponsor Tim Remole (R-Excello). “I have private schools in my district that have a lot of increases in some of their tuitions. They just received letters, many of the parents, that they will receive a 10-percent increase over the next five years because of the minimum wage law.”
Whitewater Republican Barry Hovis said he remembers voting on the minimum wage proposal in 2018 and he thought that it exempted all schools, not just public institutions.
Republicans say the workers the bill would affect, including teachers’ aides, janitors, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers, are often individuals who choose to work in those private schools to support them, and are often retired.
“They love these kids. They could, quite frankly, take their skills and go somewhere else and make a tremendous amount of money beyond what they’re making in the context of the private school. They know that,” said Representative Doug Richey (R-Excelsior Springs).
Democrats said the legislation goes against the wishes of voters and attacks some of the state’s lowest-paid workers.
“Prop B passed in 145 of the 163 House seats, so it passed in many majority party House seats. It outperformed the Republican candidate in 19 House seats. It passed in 78 of the 114 counties, and it passed in the sponsor’s district by 51.5-percent,” said Representative Judy Morgan (D-Kansas City).
St. Louis representative LaDonna Applebaum (D) said she thinks voters understood that Prop B exempted public schools and not private.
The House voted 94-53 to send House Bill 1559 to the Senate.
House gives initial passage to changes to Missouri medical marijuana provisions
The Missouri House has given initial approval to a bill addressing issues with implementing a medical marijuana industry approved by voters in 2018. This comes as its Special Oversight Committee continues to explore problems in the issuing of cultivation licenses.
House Bill 1896 would give the Department of Health and Senior Services authority to review criminal background checks to ensure no workers in the medical marijuana industry have committed a disqualifying felony criminal offense. Article 14 of the Missouri Constitution, passed in 2018 by Missouri voters, includes the authority for DHSS to conduct criminal background checks, but the FBI does not share that information with non-law enforcement entities.
HB 1896 would give DHSS statutory authority to satisfy the FBI’s concerns. It would also make it a Class-E felony for a state agency to share data about medical marijuana card applicants with the federal government.
The House on Thursday added a provision to the bill that would require a medical marijuana card applicant to meet in-person with a Missouri doctor in order to be certified.
That piece was proposed by Representative Jonathan Patterson (R), a Lee’s Summit surgeon, who said it would strengthen the fledgling program.
Some lawmakers opposed Patterson’s amendment, saying it took a narrowly focused bill to fix a problem holding up the system, and added roadblocks to some potential medical marijuana patients.
“The Department testified to us the other day that the ‘North Star’ of Amendment 2 and the ‘North Star’ of their implementation of this was patient access, and all I see in here is a limitation on the physician I can go to,” said Representative Peter Merideth (D-St. Louis).
Merideth is also critical of Patterson’s amendment having first appeared on the House floor and not being the subject of a committee hearing.
“When people passed Amendment 2 do you think they had in mind an online doctor from some other country or another state?” Patterson asked.
“I think we should ask them,” Merideth responded. “That’s the point of a public hearing on something like this so that they can come in and say, ‘Here’s how it impacts me,’ so I can hear from a doctor, so I can hear from a patient.”
O’Fallon attorney, Representative Nick Schroer (R), said he believes Patterson’s amendment will lead to court challenges.
“This is going to prohibit the actual implementation of what the voters intended and what the voters requested,” said Schroer.
Other lawmakers said requiring certification from only Missouri doctors would be a burden to those who live near the borders and visit doctors from neighboring states.
Patterson argued his amendment would protect patients.
The House also added a provision to require DHSS employees involved in medical marijuana regulation to disclose any “actual or perceived” conflicts of interest to the Department.
Another favorable vote would send the legislation to the Senate.
The House Special Committee on Government Oversight has held several hearings into apparent inconsistencies in the approval of licenses to cultivate marijuana for medical use in the state. More such hearings are expected as early as next week.
VIDEO: Missouri House Democrats discuss LGBT issues, Missouri Nondiscrimination Act
VIDEOS: Missouri House Republican and Democrat leadership answer media questions
Missouri House endorses statewide prescription drug monitoring program
The Missouri House has given preliminary approval to a statewide monitoring program for prescription drugs. Supporters say it will combat abuse of prescription drugs. Opponents say it will lead to more people switching to heroin and other illegal drugs, and cause an increase in overdose deaths.
Missouri is the only state in the nation without a statewide program, though a program started by St. Louis County encompasses roughly 87-percent of the state’s population.
House Bill 1693 would replace St. Louis County’s program with one that covers all of Missouri and puts additional protections in place for those whose data would be in the Monitoring program.
It would create an online database that doctors and pharmacists could use to record and monitor the purchases of pills and visits to pharmacies. For the seventh year, Representative Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) is the proposal’s sponsor. She said it would help fight what has been called an “epidemic” of prescription drug use.
Representative Justin Hill (R-Lake St. Louis) has opposed creation of a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) each year he has been in the House. He argues that such programs have not worked, and said by taking away pharmacies as places abusers can get prescription drugs the state would be pushing abusers to illicit drugs. He said after St. Louis County’s PDMP was implemented the rate of drug overdose deaths increased in areas it covered.
Rehder acknowledged the increase in overdose deaths but maintained PDMPs are effective tools in detecting and stemming addiction before it worsens.
“As a grandmother who got my grandbaby out of a meth lab, who was living in one, there is no way that I would have the passion for this bill if I did not know from researching the data that this gets to the underlying problem,” said Rehder. “We must stop addiction on the front end. We must allow our providers to see it.”
Representative Glen Kolkmeyer (R-Odessa) said he backs the bill because not having a PDMP statewide means people can simply go to counties that do not have it to keep getting drugs to abuse or sell.
“My issue is … when we’re doing it patch quilted together is … if you’re from one county [which has PDMP] you’ll go to another county that doesn’t have it,” said Kolkmeyer. “That’s why we need it statewide.”
Rehder said her bill includes protections against information in the PDMP database being used to take away Missourians’ rights under the 2nd and 4th Amendments. She said those protections do not exist in the St. Louis County program.
Several proposed amendments to HB 1693 were voted down, including one that would have removed the bill from law if overdose deaths increase after its passage.
The bill was perfected by a roll call vote of 95-56. Another favorable vote would send it to the Senate.
House committee approves bill to legalize syringe exchange programs for IV drug abusers
A House Committee has endorsed continued operation of programs that offer clean needles to drug abusers.
Those programs aim to get drug users into treatment by introducing them to medical professionals who can consult with them while providing them clean needles. They also fight the spread of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C, which are often transmitted through the use of dirty needles.
Representative Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) is carrying the legislation for a third straight year. She said such programs operate in Missouri now, including one in St. Louis County and one that has been operating for decades in Kansas City, but they are technically in violation of state laws against distributing drug paraphernalia.
“We do not want to create a scenario of increasing drug use. In fact, syringe access programs have been found to cause a 13-percent reduction in use. They play a very large role in the referral for treatment. They’ve also been found to decrease needle sharing by 20-percent,” Rehder told the House Committee on Health and Mental Health Policy.
The top Democrat on the committee, Representative Doug Clemens (D-St. Ann), said he is enthusiastic about House Bill 1486, and the finding that users who take advantage of needle exchanges are five times more likely to enter a drug treatment program.
Chad Sabora has testified to House committees on this proposal for several years. He runs a needle exchange program in Missouri. He is also a former Chicago prosecuting attorney who has been clean from a heroin addiction since 2011. He said the way society treats drug abusers now could be described as, “negligence and malpractice.”
Bill Kraemer of St. Genevieve testified in favor of the bill. He told of finding his daughter dead on a basement floor of an overdose. He managed to revive her and she recovered, and today is 2.5 years clean and just had a baby girl.
He said he learned through his experience with her that drug users will resort to dirty needles if they must.
Kraemer and representatives on the Committee said they hope needle exchanges will spread to rural parts of the state, because it is needed there at least as much as in Missouri’s urban centers.
Rehder and other proponents of the programs say their ability to combat the spread of diseases is particularly important now. Missouri is on the verge of a crisis in the spread of HIV and Hepatitis-C, mostly among drug users who are sharing needles.
The proposed change would cost Missouri nothing as these programs are privately funded. Rehder said the legislation could actually save the state some of the cost it has expended to treat drug abusers.
In each of the last two sessions the House has passed needle exchange legislation by sizable, bipartisan votes, but it has stalled in the Senate. HB 1486 has been approved by one House committee and is awaiting a hearing by a second.