Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly opened a sixth chapter in the state debate over Medicaid expansion Thursday with her promise at a Johnson County commission meeting that she would present another bill to state lawmakers when the next session begins.
Kelly stopped at the meeting and later at a round-table discussion with health care experts in Overland Park as part of a statewide tour to promote Medicaid expansion and pressure state legislators to vote for it.
She’s introduced a Medicaid expansion bill every year since being elected governor in 2018, but so far all have failed, despite popular support, she said.
“I refuse to give up on this fight,” Kelly said, calling her next bill her “number one priority” for the next session.
What Medicaid expansion does
Federal funds became available to states to expand their Medicaid coverage as part of the federal Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. The law provides an enhanced federal matching rate so that most adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level – or $20,120 a year for 2023 – could be covered.
Without the expansion a single mother of two qualifies for Kansas’ Medicaid money only if she makes at or below $9,500 a year, Kelly said.
Some states initially resisted the expansion and there was an ongoing effort by Republicans to dismantle the ADA after it was enacted in 2010. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback cited the push to undo Obamacare as the reason for his 2017 veto after it cleared the Kansas House and Senate. Kelly said that the state has left nearly $7 billion on the table since that veto by refusing to expand coverage in KanCare, the state’s administrator of Medicare money.
“Kansans pay federal taxes but instead of that money coming back to us to support our hospitals and our workers, we’re allowing the federal government to send it to support other state’s hospitals,” Kelly said.
Since Brownback’s veto, 40 states have expanded their Medicare coverage, including Republican-led Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska, Kelly pointed out.
“We have become a healthcare desert here in the Midwest,” she said.
Kelly says Medicaid expansion supports multiple sectors
Kelly presented an expanded KanCare as a boon not only to low-income residents but to taxpayers who now pay for services like corrections, mental health, foster care and emergency room visits when the KanCare safety net falls short.
Opening up coverage to more people would create 23,000 jobs, and help to stave off closings of hospitals that have struggled in recent years to care for the uninsured, she said. It would also help Kansas continue economic growth and give health care workers less incentive to move to higher-paying jobs in states that have expanded Medicaid, she said.
In Johnson County, hospitals spend more than $35 million each year on uncompensated care, she said.
Kelly spotlighted Republican legislative leaders in past sessions for failure to pass a bill despite broad popular support and support among many Republicans, she said.
“Every year those opponents who oppose Medicaid expansion find new ways to move the goalposts,” she said.
“I’ve heard that Medicaid expansion was never going to pass last year because some of my colleagues across the aisle did not want to give me a win during an election,” Kelly said. But she added she thinks of the bill as less a win for herself than for the residents of Kansas.
Other speakers shares support for Medicaid expansion
Several people came to the meeting and spoke in favor of the expansion before Kelly arrived.
Kristy Baughman, executive director of United Community Service, related her own family’s experience with a medical emergency when her son was diagnosed a year ago with leukemia.
“In that period, we worried about a lot of things,” she said. “But we never worried about financial ruin due to medical debt. We never worried we would lose our home and savings and that was because we had medical insurance.”
Expanding Medicaid could reduce that risk for the most vulnerable, she said.
Karole Bradford, CEO of Kansas City Medical Society Foundation said her group supports expansion because it will enable more people to be able to hold a job or get behavioral health care.
Roxie Hammill is a freelance journalist who reports frequently for the Post and other Kansas City area publications. You can reach her at roxieham@gmail.com.
