100 Kansas hospital and clinic executives, health professionals endorse Medicaid expansion

TOPEKA — More than 100 health professionals and hospital or clinic administrators issued a letter Tuesday to the 2024 Legislature asking for bipartisan support on a bill broadening Medicaid eligibility to benefit thousands of people in need of affordable, accessible quality care.

Gov. Laura Kelly, who proposed expansion for the sixth time in her State of the State speech to legislators last week, has argued that the infusion of hundreds of millions of federal dollars into the state’s health care system would strengthen its financial viability. Republican leaders of the House and Senate remain steadfast in opposition to changes in eligibility and reject the claim it would benefit health facilities statewide.

In the letter coordinated by the Kansas Hospital Association, the signers supported helping Kansans become healthier, expanding the health care workforce, reducing the number of uninsured patients, dealing with prior authorization problems and reversing population declines in rural Kansas.

The signers said these obstacles contributed to “worse health outcomes” in rural areas than in urban regions of the state.

“We write to you today because we also are in agreement that there is no silver bullet to the challenges rural providers face,” the letter said. “We encourage you to look at a comprehensive set of solutions to these problems. But there is one immediate step you can take to support access to care, retain health care workers and extend health insurance to more Kansans: Expanding Medicaid.”

The signers of the letter said Medicaid, the joint state and federal health insurance program, was appropriately designed to help low-income Americans with medical expenses. Under the state’s current Medicaid program, a single mother of two must make less than $9,500 annually to qualify.

The letter said too many full-time, minimum-wage workers didn’t receive health insurance through employers and didn’t make enough to afford coverage on the national insurance exchange. But those same Kansans earned too much money to qualify for Medicaid in Kansas. That resulted in a coverage gap that harmed people working in the fast food, retail and other service jobs, the letter said.

“Uninsured Kansans are less likely to receive access to the care they need, and if they end up in the emergency room, the hospital often has to cover the bill,” the letter said. “To address this, the federal government now offers states funding to expand Medicaid to people in that coverage gap.”

Under expanded Medicaid, the federal government would cover 90% of additional costs and the state would pay the remaining 10%.

“We know better than anyone that the issues rural health care providers face are real and will require all hands on deck to solve,” the letter said. “The time is now for leaders to step up to ensure the sustainability of rural health care. Our family, friends and your constituents expect and depend on this.”

Forty states, including the four surrounding Kansas, have taken the plunge into expansion of eligibility for Medicaid.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, and House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, have spearheaded opposition to Medicaid expansion from their vantage points as leaders of the Senate and House. They both lead Republican supermajorities in the Legislature.

Masterson said adding thousands of new patients to Medicaid would further strain the capacity of health facilities to serve people enrolled in the government program. In addition, he said, the state has yet to meet the needs of people with disabilities who participate in Medicaid.

In a rebuttal to the Democratic governor’s latest State of the State speech, Hawkins said Medicaid expansion would do nothing more than “increase welfare for able-bodied, working-age people.” He said it made more sense to create higher medical reimbursement rates and invest more in community mental health centers.