Kansas hospitals pressing ahead with Medicaid expansion proposal

Kansas hospitals are moving ahead with plans to put a Medicaid expansion plan before lawmakers. Unfortunately however, Republican Governor Sam Brownback and several GOP challengers who returned to office and solidified conservative’s control of the Legislature, opposed expansion. Similar results across the country prompted national observers to declare expansion unlikely in Kansas and other states where candidates who opposed expansion.

“No one would say it was a good night for the prospects of Medicaid expansion,” Joan Alker, director of the Center f Children and Families at Georgetown University, told Kaiser Health News.

However, CEO of Kansas Hospital Association, has reason to believe that now that the election is over, some legislative lead will be more open to discussing expansion. The Kansas Hospital Association has been working for months on an expansion plan that will be unique to the state. The Kansas proposal will call for subsidizing the purchase of private insurance for those made eligible by expansion and will be tailored work with KanCare, the state’s already privatized Medicaid system.