ACA

Kansas lawmakers have already forfeited a billion dollars in federal healthcare funding by not expanding Medicaid coverage. Guest Commentator Duane Goossen tells us that refusing to expand the program will continue to cost the state money and leave more than 100,000 Kansans without health insurance.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says Kansas could help 34,000 uninsured residents suffering from mental illness or substance abuse if the state would expand Medicaid under its KanCare program.

A new poll shows a majority of Kansans support the expansion of Medicaid, known in Kansas as KanCare, to insure more low-income adults in the state.

While more than half the states have expanded Medicaid, Kansas and Missouri have not. The Kansas Hospital Association says that by rejecting Medicaid expansion, the state has lost out on more than a billion dollars in federal funding.

Supporters of Medicaid expansion in Kansas say the rural health task force created by the governor is nothing more than window dressing; political cover to show that the state is doing something to help struggling rural hospitals. But the man leading the task force, Lt. Governor Jeff Colyer, disagrees.

More people are getting insured, but progress in Kansas is moving more slowly than in the nation as a whole.

Federal officials say they're pleased with the latest enrollment numbers for federal health insurance. In Kansas, more than 100,000 have signed up for Obamacare and in Missouri, nearly 300,000.

State Representative Jim Kelly is working with a group headed by Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer designed to assist health care providers in rural areas.

Some rural Kansas hospitals are in financial trouble, and Governor Sam Brownback is laying the blame squarely on President Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

Proponents of expanding Medicaid in Kansas gathered at a forum in Overland Park to talk about KanCare, the state's privatized version of Medicaid. At the forum, leaders from Indiana talked about that conservative state's experience in expanding the health insurance program for the poor.