By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Sen. Rick Billinger (R-Goodland) doesn’t expect any proposal to expand Medicaid in Kansas to pass in the senate.
“I don’t think there’s 24 votes to get it out of committee. There may be, and if you get it out, it takes 27 votes to get it above the line. I don’t think either one is very realistic at all,” Billinger said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
The state senator joined other local legislators Saturday in Hays for a forum hosted by the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce.
The Kansas House has passed an expansion bill but two of the three state representatives at Saturday’s event voted against it.
Hays Republican Barbara Wasinger said she voted no because the problems with KanCare need to be fixed before it’s expanded. KanCare is the program through which the state of Kansas administers Medicaid.
“Right now what needs to be done is raising the reimbursement levels. The physicians, the hospitals will get more money just by raising the reimbursement levels to start with,” said Wasinger.
All the studies Wasinger has looked at indicate the “big hospitals will get all the money. Rural hospitals will get $30,000, maybe $40,000. That’s not gonna save them.
“We need to do something about our health care system and there’s great conversation with the Kansas Medical Association people, with the hospitals, that we need really need to take a look at what our health care delivery system is. How do we fix it?
“People are waiting all the time to get in to see doctors. If we add more people right away, we’re going to bump even more people further back on the waiting list.
“There’s so many issues that we need to address to make sure that any expansion helps everyone, not just KU Med Center, Via Christi.
“What rural Kansans need are pockets of health care that can help them right now and doctors that can take their claims, and that’s not happening.”
Wasinger said her vote was not a vote against rural Kansas, nor a vote against the health of rural Kansans.
“Let’s look at this. Let’s fix this and then go from there.”
Also voting against Medicaid expansion was Rep. Ken Rahjes (R-Agra). “We can’t afford it.”
Rahjes agreed with First Dist. Congressman Roger Marshall (R-Great Bend), who also participated in Saturday’s legislative forum. “We need a real discussion about rural health care,” Rahjes contends.
Rep. Leonard Mastroni (R-La Crosse) voted in favor of the bill. The majority of his constituents in the 117th District – comprised of eight counties – supported Medicaid expansion in a survey by Mastroni.
There are six critical access hospitals in the 117th District.
“According to a KHA (Kansas Hospital Association) study, Medicaid expansion would bring another $142,000 to our little critical access hospital in La Crosse,” Mastroni said. “I think that is a significant amount to help our rural hospitals.”
Pawnee Valley Hospital of Larned, part of the KU hospital system, is the largest critical access hospital in Mastroni’s district. An additional $450,000 would come to that hospital is Medicaid is expanded.
Mastroni is concerned about how long small hospitals can continue to afford accepting patients who can’t pay for their medical services.
“That’s a huge problem. It falls directly onto the shoulders of the local counties when that happens.”
As a former Rush County commissioner and judge, “Medicaid expansion is very important to me,” Mastroni stressed.
Both Mastroni and Wasinger joined a Tuesday tour of HaysMed with Kansas Lt. Gov. Lynn Rogers.
The Democratic team of Rogers and Gov. Laura Kelley are advocating for Medicaid expansion. Kansas is one of 14 states that has not expanded Medicaid.