From Missouri Digital News: https://mdn.org
MDN Menu

MDN Home

Journalist's Creed

Print

MDN Help

 MDN.ORG: Missouri Digital News
MDN Menu

MDN Home

Journalist's Creed

Print

MDN Help

 MDN.ORG Mo. Digital News Missouri Digital News MDN.ORG: Mo. Digital News MDN.ORG: Missouri Digital News
Help  

House rejects requiring insurers to cover non-elective cosmetic surgery

March 20, 1997
By: Angela Greiling
State Capital Bureau

JEFFERSON CITY - Missouri's House has rejected requiring HMOs to cover the costs of cosmetic surgery for mastectomies, physical accidents and other disfiguring causes.

By voice vote, the House rejected including that requirement in the broader HMO-regulation bill. In addition, by a 2-1 roll-call vote, the House defeated a similar measure that would have only applied to mastectomies.

Several representatives, including sponsor Rep. Tim Harlan, D-Columbia, said they think it is important to avoid bogging down the HMO regulation bill with extra amendments that could drive up the costs of the measure.

"We were told over and over and over, 'Don't mandate (coverage), and don't increase costs,'" Harlan said of the hours of testimony the interim committee heard during the summer and fall.

Rep. Sue Shear, D-Clayton, is sponsoring a bill that is nearly identical to the amendment requiring insurers to pay for reconstructive surgery following mastectomies and for prostheses. Shear said she supported the amendments' aims, but voted against them largely because her bill addresses the same issue.

"The whole problem with all of this is it should be a separate bill," said Shear, who served on the committee that drafted the bill. "The entire interim committee decided not to include those (mandates)."

Lawmakers pointed out that most insurance companies already cover treatment of the sort with which the amendments dealt.

Rep. Linda Bartelsmeyer, R-Aurora, who sponsored one of the amendments, said it would have ensured all companies provide such coverage.

"What this does is secure this coverage for the future," she said. "The working class and the working poor could not afford to have their nose reconstructed from cancer surgery if it were not covered by insurance."

The House will resume debate Monday on managed care regulation.