JOPLIN, Mo. – While a Republican-led effort to move Medicaid expansion through the House is still ongoing, their conservative counterparts in the Senate have declared the issue dead in the upper chamber this year.

Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat who has been campaigning for Medicaid expansion since he was reelected in 2012, said he was not surprised by the handful of Senators who stood in opposition to the plan on Monday, saying while the comments threatening to block the bill “were not helpful, they were not surprising from that group of senators.”

“The folks who spoke on the Senate floor have not been voices in support of that in the past, and I think five or six talked yesterday. There are 34 members there, and we live in a majority form of government,” he said.

Nixon has been joined on the trail by Rep. Noel Torpey, D-Independence, supporting his bill containing a work requirement for able-bodied adults seeking health care assistance.

“I think the smart, the right, and the real thing we need to move forward is to accept these one-time available, $2 billion a year to expand access to health care and get reforms such as work requirements and personal responsibility,” he said. “I think we have a unique opportunity to get it.”

Sen. John Lamping, R-St. Louis, who is not seeking reelection next year, said on Monday that Medicaid expansion “is done. It’s not happening. Go find something else to do.” Sen. Brad Lager, a termed-out conservative stalwart, said, “there is no path for Medicaid expansion to occur in Missouri this year.” And the two were joined in opposition by Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who has declared his candidacy for Attorney General in 2016.