Lieutenant governor says health department is endandering lives
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Lieutenant governor says health department is endandering lives

Date: October 18, 2011
By: Jenner Smith
State Capitol Bureau

Intro: 
After waiting nearly 50 days, thousands of Missouri Medicaid recipients still have not received their services.
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Wrap: Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder says the health department is endangering the lives of Missouri senior and disabled citizens.

Medicare recipients continue to wait after the department ended its contract with SynCare, the state's former third party assessor, nearly 50 days ago.

Representative Thomas Long says the state is not acting quickly enough to address the problem. 

Actuality:  LONG1.WAV
Run Time:  00:10
Description: "This is not going away. These people are still hurting, they’re still suffering health wise and maybe even dying because we’re not doing what we should be doing as a state."

Health Department Director Margaret Donnelly was unavailable to comment.

Reporting from the state Capitol, I'm Jenner Smith.

Intro: 
Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder says the Missouri Health Department is endangering the lives of the state's Medicaid recipients.
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OutCue:  SOC

Wrap: The lieutenant governor says the health department has not assessed sixty percent of Missouri seniors on the critical needs list.

Executive Director Diane Noah of HomeCare, a private Moberly health care provider, says she does not understand why the department refuses to allow her company to provide assessments.  

Actuality:  NOAH.WAV
Run Time:  00:14
Description: "I, I don’t know why. I don’t understand why. I don’t know why they have not gone back to allowing providers to do those assessments to help these people at least get up and running and get people get back to where they need to be."

Thousands of other seniors and disabled citizens continue to wait for their services.

Health Department Director Margaret Donnelly was unavailable to comment.

Reporting from the state Capitol, I'm Jenner Smith.