HB 555 Summary

• Repeals and replaces 86 sections of Missouri law relating to health care policies, mental health services, developmental disabilities, and related health care programs

• Updates terminology throughout mental health and developmental disability statutes, replacing outdated terms like "mental retardation" and "handicapped" with "intellectual disability," "developmental disability," and "persons with a disability"

• Establishes "Disability History and Awareness Month" in October for K-12 schools to provide instruction on disability history, civil rights, and awareness to promote inclusive educational environments

• Creates the "Missouri Task Force on Prematurity and Infant Mortality" to develop evidence-based strategies and recommendations to reduce preterm birth and infant mortality rates in the state

• Adds anti-discrimination protections preventing disability or disease from being used as sole basis for denying foster care, adoption, child custody, or termination of parental rights without showing causal relationship to harm