During a recent State House Budget Committee Hearing, Missouri’s Secretary of State, Jay Ashcroft, called for eliminating Missouri’s presidential preference primary (PPP), as this would save Missouri taxpayers $9.1 million every 4 years (each election cycle). This is due to the fact that while primaries are run and financed by…
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New Study finds 1 in 6 kids in Missouri are food-insecure
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 1 in 6 kids in Missouri are food insecure. That’s roughly 12 percent, just above the national average of 11.7 percent. These numbers may seem alarming to you. Most people think that the ShowMe state should be less sensitive…
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Is murder on the rise in Missouri?
Missouri is known for the Ozarks, the St. Louis Arch and murder? SafeWise scoured FBI data to discover that over a five-year average from 2013-2017, Missouri is ranked third in states with the highest murder rates. Louisiana ranked first with 11.1 murders per 100,000 people, Mississippi ranked second at 8.0…
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Missouri voters may have final say on Medicaid Expansion
Part two of a two-part series on Medicaid expansion in Kansas and Missouri. Part one can be found here. Much like Kansas, Missouri is one of the 14 states that has yet to expand its Medicaid program under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. While in Kansas the battle over…
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New report details Missouri’s decreasing life expectancy
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services released a report in September that showed that although the life expectancy in the United States is 78.6 years, Missouri’s is 77.0 years, dropping for the sixth consecutive year. Since 2012 there has actually been a decrease in death rates in Missouri for…
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Psychiatrist loses Kansas license, still allowed to practice in Missouri
A doctor accused of having sex with several of his patients and exploiting another patient for economic gain is still allowed to practice in Missouri – even after the suspension of his Kansas license. Brian Patrick Lahey, the accused doctor, is a psychiatrist in Overland Park. Lahey received his medical…
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Marijuana legalization efforts gaining steam in Missouri
Using a 2015 national survey, the National Institute on Drug Abuse determined that marijuana is the most frequently used illicit drug. However, recent changes in public opinion and state laws have begun to call marijuana’s illicit status into question. According to the Pew Research Center, “About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say…
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Opinion: Missouri is the worst state in America for mental health care. Here’s how to fix it
When it comes to mental health care in the U.S., Missouri is the worst. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), an organization that determines health professional shortage areas (HPSA) in all 50 states and U.S. territories, the Show Me state was the worst at covering its populations’…
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Missouri Supreme Court extends LGBT protections
In late February, the Missouri Supreme Court extended legal protections with two separate rulings in two different directions to the LGBT community. One of the cases involved employee rights, and the other addressed access to public facilities by transgender students. In the first case, Lampley v. Missouri Commission on…
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