{"id":7348,"date":"2004-05-05T07:53:25","date_gmt":"2004-05-05T07:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html"},"modified":"2004-05-05T07:53:25","modified_gmt":"2004-05-05T07:53:25","slug":"lobbying_in_mo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html","title":{"rendered":"Lobbying in MO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bishops have ticked off some GOP solons<\/a><\/p>\n

The rift began with a March 15 letter to lawmakers from the Missouri Catholic Conference, signed by the state’s five bishops. It was critical of legislation by Republican Rep. Jodi Stefanick, of Ballwin, a Catholic, that would have toughened Medicaid eligibility criteria, required patient co-payments and made such services as optical and dental care subject to yearly appropriation.<\/p>\n

House Republicans have argued the state’s Medicaid rolls, which now cover one in six Missourians, have grown too large for a state that has struggled to meet its financial obligations.<\/p>\n

But the bishops said the Medicaid bill would “jeopardize access to health care for many of our poorest citizens” and they advised lawmakers: “Let us not be like the rich man who pretended not to know the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

…Stefanick, who believes she closely follows church teachings, said it was frustrating to find herself on the opposite side of the church’s lobbying arm.<\/p>\n

“I think everyone was surprised” by the Medicaid letter, Stefanick said. “It seemed to me people were questioning why the Catholic Conference was inserting itself so deeply on this issue.”<\/p>\n

Catholic Rep. Paul LeVota, D-Independence, said the Catholic Conference is known for its work with the poor and should have been expected to weigh in on the Medicaid issue. He said the response from Republicans toward the Catholic Conference “was just another example of Republican leadership not getting their way and then railing against someone politically.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update:<\/strong> I stand corrected. Turns out (of course) there is more to the story…Popcak uncovers it here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishops have ticked off some GOP solons The rift began with a March 15 letter to lawmakers from the Missouri Catholic Conference, signed by the state’s five bishops. It was critical of legislation by Republican Rep. Jodi Stefanick, of Ballwin, a Catholic, that would have toughened Medicaid eligibility criteria, required patient co-payments and made such…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nLobbying in MO - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lobbying in MO - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bishops have ticked off some GOP solons The rift began with a March 15 letter to lawmakers from the Missouri Catholic Conference, signed by the state’s five bishops. It was critical of legislation by Republican Rep. Jodi Stefanick, of Ballwin, a Catholic, that would have toughened Medicaid eligibility criteria, required patient co-payments and made such…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-05-05T07:53:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lobbying in MO - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lobbying in MO - Via Media","og_description":"Bishops have ticked off some GOP solons The rift began with a March 15 letter to lawmakers from the Missouri Catholic Conference, signed by the state’s five bishops. It was critical of legislation by Republican Rep. Jodi Stefanick, of Ballwin, a Catholic, that would have toughened Medicaid eligibility criteria, required patient co-payments and made such…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2004-05-05T07:53:25+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html","name":"Lobbying in MO - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-05-05T07:53:25+00:00","dateModified":"2004-05-05T07:53:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/lobbying_in_mo.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobbying in MO"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}