AARP Kansas Advocates For Medicaid Expansion

Not everyone thinks it is.

Sam Brownback (R) rejected legislation on Thursday that would have used funding from the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid in his state to more low-income people.

He added that “most grievously” the bill “funnels more taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry”. But it’s unclear whether Texas – a state that has more uninsured people than any other state in the country – is willing to hop on the bandwagon.

Conway said he supports Medicaid Expansion in Missouri and explained how conversations about it have changed.

Business and individual income tax reductions adopted by Brownback and the GOP-controlled Legislature five years ago thrust the state into large budget shortfalls because spending wasn’t curtailed sufficiently to match declining revenue.

“We are one of, I think, 31 (Kansas) hospitals that were listed at risk for closure at the beginning of the year”, said Terry Deschaine, a member of the medical center’s board.

“To expand Obamacare when the program is in a death spiral is not responsible policy”, Melika Willoughby, Brownback’s spokeswoman has said.

Some 32 states have adopted Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion program since the landmark health care legislation took full effect in 2014.

And in some states, non-parents, no matter how poor, can not get Medicaid at all. Media Matters conducted a survey of Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS’s local affiliates in the Kansas City market from February 15 through March 28 and found that their nightly weekday news shows at 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. collectively devoted only 7 minutes and 45 seconds to covering the debates on the Medicaid expansion in the House and Senate of the Kansas legislature.

The Sumner Regional Medical Center in Wellington is one of several Kansas hospitals struggling financially in part because of the state’s refusal to expand KanCare, which the Kansas Hospital Association estimates has cost providers almost $1.8 billion in additional federal funding. Nope: Per Obamacare, the federal government pays for the entire cost of the expansion for the next three years, and then 90 percent of it after 2020.

Many states have become aware that they are losing out.

“This bill covers Kansans, it brings federal money back home, it creates jobs, it protects hospitals and it protects our rural communities”, Schmidt said.

Brownback hasn’t said whether he would veto the bill, but lawmakers on both sides of the debate expect it. “These Kansans earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private care”. It received 25 votes in the Senate and 81 votes in the House, meaning the bill is just a few votes shy of a veto-proof majority – but not far off.

But other states are encouraged. He argued in his annual State of the State address that expanding Medicaid under its provisions would be “airlifting onto the Titanic”. “There are no excuses any more”. Democratic governors in North Carolina and Virginia also want to do so, though it’s unlikely to get through their Republican legislatures.

The Bridge to a Healthy Kansas Program, or “KanCare”, is a state coverage initiative by the KHA to provide affordable healthcare to 150,000 Kansans. Barbara Bollier was removed from a health committee for supporting Medicaid expansion.

The train wreck involving the American Health Care Act in the U.S. House last week offered a burst of fresh hope to those in the 19 states that have not yet accepted the Medicaid expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act and made optional by the U.S. Supreme Court.