Clara Bates
Reporter | The Missouri IndependentClara Bates covers social services and poverty for The Missouri Independent. She previously worked for the Nevada Current, where she reported on labor violations in casinos, hurdles facing applicants for unemployment benefits and lax oversight of the funeral industry. She also wrote about vocational education for Democracy Journal. Bates is a graduate of Harvard College and a member of the Report for America Corps.
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Over a year after a lawsuit alleged the state’s ‘dysfunctional’ SNAP call center violates federal law, low-income Missourians still face automatic disconnections and wait times of around an hour. -
The people imprisoned were supposed to receive rehabilitative mental health services that allow them to stand trial, but they have been found to languish in jails — often for months — without having been found guilty of any crime. -
A law passed by the Missouri General Assembly last year made sleeping on state-owned land a Class C misdemeanor. The legislation was modeled off a template by a conservative think tank, but housing advocates say it criminalizes homelessness and was improperly tacked onto an unrelated bill. -
Missouri’s share of children being disenrolled from Medicaid is third-highest among the states that report age breakouts. Nearly 40,000 kids total lost coverage — mostly for paperwork reasons — and it's not yet clear how many were able to cycle back or move to another program. -
There are currently 253 people in Missouri jails waiting to be transferred to a state hospital for mental health treatment.
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The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch gave Missouri an "F" grade for its compliance with international child rights standards. Missouri still allows 16-year-olds to be married, and allows corporal punishment in public and private schools. -
![From left: Kendyl Underwood, a 20-year-old St. Louis University student studying nursing, demonstrates in support of abortion rights on Friday, June 24, 2022, outside the Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. “The only thing we can do is push back,” Underwood said. “It’s not democracy for [the Supreme Court] to pass this and we have to make that heard.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/718e17a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2999x1671+0+223/resize/280x156!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2Fd9%2F0785d3bb476d87884bab7ce7eec8%2F06242022-bm-pp-8a.JPG)
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's office filed a brief arguing a trial court decision that forbid the state from zeroing out the Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood services should be reversed. -
The state is moving forward to change how it calculates payment rates for its Self-Directed Supports program — a situation families say took them by surprise and that they fear could mean rates for caretakers are frozen at low levels or become unpredictable. -
As some states wrap up this year’s summer food aid program, Missouri is still distributing last year’s benefits. Officials say they must complete dispersal by the end of this year -
In June and July, the first two months of resumed Medicaid eligibility checks, nearly three-quarters of those who lost coverage lost it for procedural reasons rather than determined ineligibility. -
An inspections backlog grew in Missouri during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated more recently by staffing shortages and a spike in complaints that have tapped available resources -
A July report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, a national policy group, found that 19 of Missouri’s 57 rural hospitals are at risk of shuttering because of “serious financial problems.”
![From left: Kendyl Underwood, a 20-year-old St. Louis University student studying nursing, demonstrates in support of abortion rights on Friday, June 24, 2022, outside the Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. “The only thing we can do is push back,” Underwood said. “It’s not democracy for [the Supreme Court] to pass this and we have to make that heard.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e356636/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2999x1671+0+223/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2Fd9%2F0785d3bb476d87884bab7ce7eec8%2F06242022-bm-pp-8a.JPG)
