ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
During her time in office, Gov. Laura Kelly has made no secret of her desire to expand Medicaid in order to help Kansans.
That expansion could be a step closer to becoming reality as her proposal to expand Medicaid to 150,000 additional Kansans, the Healthcare Access for Working Kansans (HAWK) Act was introduced into both chambers of the Kansas Legislature earlier this week.
“The Healthcare Access for Working Kansans (HAWK) Act protects our rural hospitals, bolsters our health care workforce, and strengthens our economy — all while coming at no cost to Kansans. In fact, by waiting to expand Medicaid, we have wasted over $280 million and left $7.6 billion on the table in Washington D.C.,” Gov. Kelly noted in a release from the State of Kansas. “I encourage the legislature to advance Medicaid expansion this session so we can bring Kansas taxpayer dollars back home to support our health care system.”
The bill was introduced in the House Appropriations Committee by 44th House District Representative Barbara Ballard and in the Senate Ways and Means Committee by Sixth District Senator Pat Pettey.
“Expanding Medicaid ensures hardworking Kansans can receive preventive care to stay healthy and on the job – benefitting not only our economy but our hospital and health care workforce as well,” Rep. Ballard noted in the State of Kansas release. “That is why I introduced the Healthcare Access for Working Kansans (HAWK) Act so that Kansans can get the critical, timely care they need. The passage of Medicaid expansion would create 23,000 new jobs, inject $1.2 billion in annual funding into Kansas’ economy, and reduce health care costs for Kansans. Medicaid expansion would also address the state’s health care workforce shortage while helping safeguard rural hospitals so they can remain open and well-staffed in order to continue serving Kansans across the state.”
“My fellow legislators should listen to Kansans who, time and time again, express that they want to see Medicaid expanded in our state,” Sen. Pettey noted in the State of Kansas release. “Kansans deserve quality, affordable health care, and by expanding Medicaid, we can increase this access to 150,000 additional working Kansans and lower health care costs for all.”
During her time in office, Gov. Kelly and other local leaders have championed the expansion of Medicaid.
“I don't really look at Medicaid expansion as a political issue, I look at it more from the standpoint of what it could do for our hospitals, our community and the surrounding communities,” Southwest Medical Center CEO Ambert Williams noted in a March 2024 L&T story. “We have a very large chunk of people in Liberal and Seward County who fall under the gap of making too much money to qualify for Medicaid without the expansion but not enough to pay for insurance that's available through their employer or get insurance through the marketplace if their employer doesn't offer that. That means there's a huge chunk of people who are uninsured, and that creates a snowball effect because they aren't getting regular healthcare, meaning a lot of the time, by the time we see those people, they're in the ER. A lot of people unfortunately use the ER as their doctor's office because they can't go to the doctor's office because they can't afford a regular office visit, so our ER visits are higher. Those people have no insurance, so going to a doctor's office, it's $100 at minimum for a regular visit, and it's more if you have to get a prescription of some type. You pay roughly $3,000 for an ER visit, so it's way, way higher, and that's causing people to rack up medical debt, which is one of, if not the, biggest reason people file for bankruptcy in the U.S. A lot of times, when people do make it to the ER, they're so sick from putting off going to the doctor, they either get admitted here or end up having to get flown to Wichita or Amarillo, Texas or Kansas City, and all of that just keeps adding to the bill and that debt.”
“It is with great honor and privilege that I stand before you as mayor to address a matter of the utmost importance to our state. As many are aware, healthcare accessibility has been a pressing issue not just for our rural community, but the entirety of Kansas,” Liberal Mayor Jose Lara noted at a March 2024 press conference. “I hope everyone leaves this conference showing full support for Gov. Laura Kelly and her push to expand Medicaid in our state. Gov. Kelly's dedication to the welfare of all Kansans, regardless of ZIP code or socioeconomic status, is evident in her tireless efforts to address the healthcare disparities that exist in the state. From April 2021 through April 2023, I served on the SWMC Board of Trustees and gained an acute awareness of the financial struggles rural hospitals faced coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, the hospitals in our sister cities, Dodge City and Garden City, were bought out by a corporate health system. That might bring more funds and flexibility to those hospitals in the short term, but the loss of local control and the ability of the local hospital to focus on local issues quickly fades as the focus instead turns toward profitability instead of quality healthcare. Why is Medicaid expansion so vital for rural Kansas? Without adequate insurance coverage, people are forced to delay seeking medical care, leading to exacerbated health conditions and preventable tragedies, and people begin use the ER as their primary care. Many of those visits are left unpaid and have to be absorbed by the hospital.”
“Recent survey data shows the vast majority of Kansas voters, nearly 70 percent, are in favor of Medicaid expansion, and that includes a majority of Republican primary voters and 83 percent of small business owners. At this point, any legislator standing in the way of Medicaid expansion is going against a common-sense, fiscally responsible proposal that benefits their constituents, their hospitals, the businesses in their communities/district, and by extension, the entire state,” Gov. Kelly noted at a March 2024 press conference. “We passed Medicaid expansion before – seven years ago, the Kansas Legislature, led by Republicans, voted to expand Medicaid, but it was vetoed by the governor at that time, Sam Brownback. Since that veto, because we haven't expanded Medicaid, we have left nearly $7 billion of Kansas taxpayer money in Washington, DC, which has been used to support Medicaid coverage for people in other states such as New York and each of our neighboring states. We have become a healthcare desert in the middle of America. We're experiencing an unprecedented healthcare worker shortage because those professionals are leaving in droves to other states that have higher paying jobs and better benefits that have expanded Medicaid. Our rural healthcare system is in crisis – eight rural hospitals have closed and of the facilities that remain, 58 percent are at risk of closure, and 28 percent are at risk for immediate closure. I don't know how many more healthcare facilities have to close before we expand Medicaid in Kansas, but the answer should be 'ZERO.'”
