Lawmakers in Missouri and other states are being offered billions of dollars of “free money” from the federal government to support a major expansion in their states’ Medicaid programs. It is an offer they can and must refuse.

Should Missouri and other states accept an offer of “free money” from Uncle Sam to expand the Medicaid program in their states? Instead of acting as enablers of fiscal profligacy, Missouri and other states should say “no.”

The federal government wants Missouri and other states to participate in a major expansion of the Medicaid program as part of the new health care law. Missouri can and should say “No.”

The health care law should be struck down on practical grounds even more than on legal grounds. It violates multiple principles of sound policy-making. It is truly unaffordable.

The Missouri Senate deserves praise for approving a measure that prohibits Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon from creating a health insurance exchange for the state without legislative or voter approval.

When the government enacts policies that extend its authority to new areas, such as the impending health care law, it creates what economists call “regime uncertainty.” Missouri is in a state of limbo. Regardless of whether a higher court overturns the law in the future, businesses, lawmakers, and individuals need to know how to act in the present.

Missouri's attorney general has the opportunity to represent the state's resounding opposition to the federal health care reform law adopted by Congress earlier this year. By signing on to a Florida lawsuit challenging the individual insurance mandate, the attorney general can help signal that Missourians are capable of making their own health insurance decisions.

When Missouri voters passed Proposition C last August with more than 71 percent of the vote, they signaled strong opposition to the individual mandate included in the recently passed federal health care reform law. In view of this expression of the popular will, and the implications of this expansion of federal power, Show-Me Institute Executive Director Brenda Talent urges Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster to join the states that have filed a constitutional challenge to the law in an effort to protect the liberty of their citizens.

A lawsuit filed by Missouri’s lieutenant governor against the recently passed federal health care reform may not proceed as intended. A court may agree to hear some of the counts asserted in this suit, but it seems likely that the court will ultimately dismiss at least half of the claims (and probably three quarters of them) as lacking either standing or ripeness. 

Well-intentioned supporters of the new autism mandate hope to help Missouri families with autistic children. Health care mandates also carry unintended consequences, raising the cost of insurance premiums for other Missourians. Small businesses are particularly cost-sensitive, and some marginal number of them may end up being forced to cut coverage or reduce hiring.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon.

The passage and signing of the president's massive health care reform legislation are the latest chapters in the socialization of the economy. No, this will not be a "tea party" rant about how such a change spells doom for our culture as we know it. But there are growing signs that our leftward lurch to a world of a bigger, more activist government may not in our best long-term interests.

Missouri’s oral health is among the worst in the nation, partly because of the state’s shortage of dentists. Programs in Alaska, England, Australia, and Canada have had success with dental therapists, who can provide a wide range of dental services at a low cost. Missouri could also benefit from dental therapists if the state’s professional licensing law did not stand in the way.

The individual health insurance mandate being considered in Congress would violate individual liberties secured by the U.S. Constitution.  A proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution in response to the proposed mandate might be a useful step toward protecting individual freedoms.

Federal attention has recently focused on small businesses in an effort to reduce soaring unemployment. The president has pledged help them grow and expand hiring, but in order to promote the true survival and growth of small businesses, the first step to take would be to see to it that they aren’t saddled with higher tax burdens as a result of health care reform.

Commentators in the current health care debate often look to Canada’s and Britain’s public health care systems for hints as to what our future may resemble. The systems in each of those countries feature significant differences, however, both philosophically and operationally, that provide unique cautionary examples for the future of U.S. legislation.

Advocates of a nationwide public option for health insurance claim the plan would increase competition. Before layering the market with new bureaucracy, however, it’s important to consider how regulatory barriers already hamper competition in health insurance markets. Removing barriers is much more efficient than creating new ones.

Many of us who have elderly family members living in nursing homes feel a natural urge to protect them through government regulation. But before passing new legislation, it’s important to determine whether the proposed regulations will actually have the desired effect of protecting Missouri’s elderly citizens.

The new “Insure Missouri” plan adds new layers of bureaucracy and centralized control to a system that needs exactly the opposite. If state government is going to subsidize health care for needy Missourians, it should convert existing entitlement programs into a system of vouchers that allow participants to purchase their own policies and establish health savings accounts.

Gov. Blunt’s new health care plan is designed to insure low-income workers. While the plan is fundamentally flawed, it gets one thing right: A system of targeted subsidies would do a much better job of providing quality, timely health care to the needy than the universal health plans that are often proposed today.

Although a circuit court judge recently struck down a controversial midwifery provision from a health insurance reform law, the measure deserves to be resurrected. Evidence shows that midwives provide safe, effective care to their patients. Expectant mothers are capable of making their own decisions about the type of care they wish to receive without state interference.