Topeka Capital Journal: As Medicaid expansion talks falter, new study predicts little impact on Kansas budget

By Sherman Smith | April 24, 2019 A new analysis from a national health insurance advocate predicts Kansas could provide coverage to low-income families through Medicaid expansion without compromising the state budget. The analysis, which traces savings from a spike in federal funding and subsequent tax revenue, coincides with a meeting Wednesday between Republican legislative […]

Kansas City Star: KCK artist struggles to stay insured as disease could rob him of his eyesight

By Andy Marso | April 14, 2019 In a small back room of his Kansas City, Kansas, art studio, Michael Brantley pointed out a painting stretching across one wall. It was a bird’s-eye view of a man playing a trumpet that Brantley said was once part of a temporary exhibit at the American Jazz Museum. […]

Leavenworth Times: Doctor for Medicaid expansion

Letter to the editor: Doctor for Medicaid expansion As a retired doctor and lifetime rural Kansas resident, I understand well how access to health care can be a matter of life and death for families and communities. Kansas faces many challenges maintaining services in rural communities. Solutions will require a combination of technology, innovation, risk-taking […]

Topeka Capital Journal: Subverting the democratic process

Letter to the editor: Subverting the democratic process Sen. Wagle is making a mockery of the democratic process by not allowing the Kansas Senate to vote on the expansion of Kansas Medicaid (KanCare). Instead, she wants to head it back to committee, effectively blocking a vote. It appears she cares more for undermining the newly […]

Rural Matters

Michelle chats with Sheldon Weisgrau, senior policy advisor for the Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, in the wake of a major report by CBS on the increasing number of rural hospital closures. Michelle and Sheldon discuss the fact that it is far more likely that hospitals in the 14 states (including Kansas) that have not […]

Partial expansions and other gimmicks are no substitute for real KanCare expansion

By Sheldon Weisgrau, Senior Policy Advisor Over the course of the decade-long effort to expand Medicaid in Kansas, opponents have grasped at a number of gimmicks that impose barriers to providing health coverage to as many as 150,000 hardworking Kansans. The latest comes from the state of Utah, which just received federal approval to implement […]

Kansas City Star: Kansas governor, Senate GOP president face off over Medicaid

By Jonathan Shorman | April 2, 2019 As Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly urges lawmakers to expand Medicaid, the state Senate’s top Republican is opening the door to a health care bill that would include provisions favored by conservatives, such as work requirements. But Senate President Susan Wagle wants the Legislature to study expansion later this […]

Topeka Capital Journal: KanCare expansion would help all Kansans

By Mike Oxford | March 25, 2019 Opponents of Medicaid expansion (known as KanCare in Kansas) continue to promote the false narrative that expansion would harm Kansans with disabilities. In trying to drive a wedge between expansion supporters and the disability community, they promote a false choice — that the state can afford either expansion […]