JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Although the federal government would spend billions of dollars, an expansion of Missouri's Medicaid program could actually generate millions of dollars of new revenues and savings for the state's budget, according to an analysis by Gov. Jay Nixon's administration.

The Democratic governor plans to use the figures to bolster his argument to skeptical Republican legislators that the state should embrace a key part of President Barack Obama's health care law and expend Medicaid eligibility to hundreds of thousands of lower-income adults.

The projections released this past week by Nixon's budget office show Missouri could see a nearly $47 million increase in general revenues during the first year of the Medicaid expansion in 2014. That boost in state revenues would grow to nearly $140 million in 2016 before gradually declining to a slightly better than break-even point in 2021.