Robert Lee Holden Jr. is an American politician who served as the 53rd governor of Missouri from 2001 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the Missouri state treasurer from 1993 to 2001 and represented the 136th district in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1983 to 1989. Since leaving public office, Holden has worked at Webster University, where he founded the Holden Public Policy Forum, and serves as the president and chairman of the United States Heartland China Association.
Melvin Eugene Carnahan was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 51st governor of Missouri from 1993 until his death in 2000. Carnahan was a Democrat and held various positions in government.
A block grant is a grant-in-aid of a specified amount from a larger government to a smaller regional government body. Block grants have less oversight from the larger government and provide flexibility to each subsidiary government body in terms of designing and implementing programs. Block grants, categorical grants, and general revenue sharing are three types of federal government grants-in-aid programs.
Matthew Roy Blunt is an American politician and former naval officer who served as the 54th governor of Missouri from 2005 to 2009. He previously served ten years in the United States Navy and as Missouri secretary of state.
John Russell Carnahan is an American politician from the state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. representative for Missouri's 3rd congressional district from 2005 to 2013.
The Massachusetts health care reform, commonly referred to as Romneycare, was a healthcare reform law passed in 2006 and signed into law by Governor Mitt Romney with the aim of providing health insurance to nearly all of the residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Jonathan 'Jon' Dolan is a trade association executive and former Missouri legislator who served in the Missouri Senate from 2003 to 2005 and served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1997 to 2003.
Christopher Andrew Koster is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 41st Attorney General of Missouri from 2009 to 2017. Before that, Koster was elected three times as prosecuting attorney of Cass County, Missouri, and served four years as state senator from Missouri's 31st Senatorial district.
Rex Andrew Sinquefield is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist who has been called an "index-fund pioneer" for creating the first passively managed index fund open to the general public. Sinquefield was also a co-founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors. He is active in Missouri politics.
The Adam Smith Foundation is a 501(c)(4) conservative advocacy organization in Jefferson City, Missouri. The foundation was formed to promote conservative principles and peoples liberties all while going through public communication and a grassroots mobilization.
Clint Zweifel, is an American politician and businessman who served as the State Treasurer of Missouri from 2009 to 2017. He is a member of the Democratic Party and the most recent member of the party to hold that office. Following his service as State Treasurer, he was appointed as a managing director with Northern Trust, leading a multi-disciplinary team that includes banking, investment management, and trust/advisory services.
Eric Stephen Schmitt is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Missouri since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Schmitt served as the 43rd Missouri Attorney General from 2019 to 2023.
The healthcare reform debate in the United States has been a political issue focusing upon increasing medical coverage, decreasing costs, insurance reform, and the philosophy of its provision, funding, and government involvement.
Healthcare rationing in the United States exists in various forms. Access to private health insurance is rationed on price and ability to pay. Those unable to afford a health insurance policy are unable to acquire a private plan except by employer-provided and other job-attached coverage, and insurance companies sometimes pre-screen applicants for pre-existing medical conditions. Applicants with such conditions may be declined cover or pay higher premiums and/or have extra conditions imposed such as a waiting period.
There were a number of different health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration. Key reforms address cost and coverage and include obesity, prevention and treatment of chronic conditions, defensive medicine or tort reform, incentives that reward more care instead of better care, redundant payment systems, tax policy, rationing, a shortage of doctors and nurses, intervention vs. hospice, fraud, and use of imaging technology, among others.
The United States federal budget consists of mandatory expenditures, discretionary spending for defense, Cabinet departments and agencies, and interest payments on debt. This is currently over half of U.S. government spending, the remainder coming from state and local governments.
The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America's Promise was the Republican Party's budget proposal for the federal government of the United States in the fiscal year 2012. It was succeeded in March 2012 by "The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal", the Republican budget proposal for 2013. Representative Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, played a prominent public role in drafting and promoting both The Path to Prosperity proposals, and they are therefore often referred to as the Ryan budget, Ryan plan or Ryan proposal.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is an organization of the United States government under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It was created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2010 U.S. health care reform legislation. CMS provides healthcare coverage to more than 100 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Health Insurance Marketplace.
The Medicare Physician Group Practice (PGP) demonstration was Medicare's first physician pay-for-performance (P4P) initiative. The demonstration established incentives for quality improvement and cost efficiency. Ten large physician groups participated in the demonstration, which started on April 1, 2005, and ran for 5 years. Previous funding arrangements, like the volume performance standard (VPS) and the sustainable growth rate (SGR) did not provide incentives to slow the growth of services. The Medicare PGP demonstration was intended to overcome that limitation in previous funding arrangements.
2020 Missouri Amendment 2, also known as the Medicaid Expansion Initiative, was a ballot measure to amend the Constitution of Missouri to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The initiative was on the August 4, 2020, primary ballot and passed with 53.27% of the vote. Following previous successful Medicaid expansion initiatives in other states, Republican lawmakers in Nebraska and Utah added work requirements to their states' Medicaid expansions, which supporters aimed to prevent by proposing state constitutional amendments for future Medicaid expansion initiatives. Opponents sued to prevent the initiative from being voted on, but courts ruled in the measure's favor. The measure was supported most in urban areas and opposed in rural areas. After a delay due to a lack of funding from the Missouri General Assembly and resulting litigation, the initiative was implemented in October 2021, albeit slowly. Republican lawmakers attempted to roll back the program and add a work requirement through a state constitutional amendment, which failed after the United States Supreme Court effectively prevented the implementation of one.
