By KHI NEWS SERVICE

TOPEKA — Six of the state’s more prominent women politicians – three Democrats and three Republicans — have come together in an attempt to unseat Gov. Sam Brownback. Medicaid expansion is one of the issues they say the governor is wrong about.

The six have started a coalition they are calling “Reroute the Roadmap,” an allusion to Brownback’s “Roadmap for Kansas” campaign theme.

Rochelle Chronister, a former legislator and one-time chair of the Kansas Republican Party, said Brownback’s refusal to move forward with Medicaid expansion will deal a financial blow to Kansas hospitals, especially smaller, rural ones, because it will force them to absorb reductions in Medicare reimbursements without the promised offsetting increases in Medicaid revenue that was part of the initial bargain when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Medicaid expansion was an option for states to decide not the federal government and Kansas has been among the states to choose against it.

“So, they’re now caught,” Chronister said of the hospitals. “It’s going to come as a real shock, especially to a lot of small, rural hospitals.”

Chronister said the financial squeeze forced the Catholic hospital system that runs hospitals in Independence and Ft. Scott to recently lay off 29 people.

“That’s probably a direct result of preparing for the cuts that are going to take place in Medicare,” she said.

Other Republican founders of the coalition are Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger of Lawrence and former U.S. Sen. Sheila Frahm of Colby. Frahm was appointed to replace Bob Dole in the Senate but was defeated by Brownback in the subsequent election. Praeger is from the GOP’s moderate wing and has had differences with the governor over implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which he has staunchly opposed.

The three Democrats involved are:

• Joan Wagnon, a former revenue secretary and head of the Kansas Democratic Party;
• Jill Docking, who also once ran against Brownback when he was in the U.S. Senate and now is running mate to State Rep. Paul Davis of Lawrence who is expected to be Brownback’s Democratic challenger in the November election; and
• State Sen. Laura Kelly, a prominent legislator from Topeka.

Chronister said the six came together before Docking decided to join Davis on the ticket against Brownback. She said the women joined forces because they thought it was important to elect “anyone but Brownback,” in the coming election.

They also fault the governor for his policies on taxes and school funding.

The women launched a website seeking volunteers and donations.

Wagnon said more than 1,300 people signed up in a matter of hours.

The newly forming coalition isn’t at the forefront of the Medicaid expansion issue. The Kansas Hospital Association and more than 50 other groups have been pushing for months to get the issue before legislators this session. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have said their is little or no likelihood it will be approved or seriously considered unless the governor offers a proposal to do so.

Brownback hasn’t fully closed the door on Medicaid expansion. He has said he is interested in seeing how some other Republican states fare in gaining federal approval for proposals that would essentially move new Medicaid beneficiaries into private health insurance plans with the costs paid for by the government.

Brownback launched a Medicaid makeover in 2013 that moved virtually all the state’s program enrollees into managed care plans run by three insurance companies: Amerigroup, UnitedHealthCare and Sunflower State Health Plan, a subsidiary of Centene.