By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
“Expanding KanCare is a really critical issue across Kansas,” according to David Jordan, executive director, Alliance for a Healthy Kansas.
Thursday, Sept. 29 at 6:30 p.m. in the Hays Sternberg Museum, 3000 Sternberg Drive, members of the community will have the opportunity to gather together in open discussion of the benefits of expanding the system to cover the medical coverage gap that currently affects 150,000 Kansans.
“So you have these 150,000 Kansas who are hard working friends, family and neighbors that are in this coverage gap,” Jordan said. That gap includes people who do not qualify for financial assistance on the healthcare marketplace and earn too much to qualify for KanCare.
As an example, Jordan said a single mother who earns $6,600 a year makes too much money qualify for the KanCare program.
The state has forfeited $1.4 billion since 2014 by not accepting federal funding as a part of the Affordable Care Act, according to Jordan, money that would not only benefit those in need of medical care but would also be an economic motivator.
“Just next door to you guys in Russell, taxpayers are paying twice for care,” he said. “They are paying their federal taxes and, since we’re not expanding KanCare, we are not getting that money back, so the hospital is providing a lot of charity care. They can’t afford to do that, so they have to tax people locally in Russell to keep their hospital open.”
He estimates every day KanCare is not expanded Kansas taxpayers lose $1.9 million in federal funding.
“That’s our tax dollars,” Jordan said.
Legislative inaction is now spurring the group to host conversations directly with the public in a hope to encourage citizens to approach their legislators.
“Since we haven’t been able to have a discussion about why it’s important to expand KanCare in Topeka in the last year, we have launched a series of community events across the state to be talking about this and to help people to understand how important it is to expand Kan Care,” Jordan said. “The goal is to have a community conversation with folks who attend to talk about how this impacts them, how it impacts the people they work with every day and really have a discussion how it impacts people in Hays and Ellis County.”
Jordan said roughly 1,025 people in Ellis County would gain health coverage with the expansion of KanCare.
“So we want to make sure people are saying these are our friends, these are our neighbors that would get coverage,” he said.
An expansion would also create jobs, according to Jordan, 27 on the low end in Ellis County and over 3,800 statewide.
Around $4.3 million dollars in health care spending would also be brought into the county.
In general, the argument for the expansion is not well understood, he said, prompting even more need for the conversations to take place.
“I think it’s just a matter of an ideological divide, not wanting to be part of Obamacare. The truth is this isn’t Obamacare, it’s KanCare, the Kansas-specific solution,” Jordan said. “I think there is a lot of misunderstanding around ideology and that is part of the reason why we are doing this event.”
Among the members and supporters of the Alliance for a Healthy Kansas expected to attend Thursday’s meeting are:
- John H. Jeter, MD, President & Chief Executive Officer, Hays Medical Center
- Bryan Brady, CEO, First Care Clinics, Inc. in Hays and Victoria
- Sheldon Weisgrau, Health Reform Resource Project
- David Jordan, Executive Director, Alliance for a Healthy Kansas