NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly believes that Medicaid expansion is still something that needs to be done and she wants to do everything she can to make sure it happens before she leaves Cedar Crest. She spoke about that in an interview with Hutch Post last week.
"We have Republican leadership in both the House and in the Senate that is somewhat extreme and ideological, still living sort of in the past when there was so much contention around the original Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, as many people call it," Kelly said. "That's been in place now for over ten years. Forty five million people are part of that, and it is long past time for Kansas to pass Medicaid expansion."
The numbers in support of Medicaid expansion in Kansas are still strong. According to the latest Kansas Speaks survey from Fort Hays State University released in October, support for Medicaid expansion in Kansas in 2024 continues to be at about 70 percent, and 51 percent of the respondents felt the issue was highly or extremely important as they decide who gets their vote to represent them in the Kansas Legislature, compared to 8 percent who felt the issue was not important at all.
"We have now sent over $7 billion of Kansas taxpayer dollars to Washington, D.C. to be distributed to other states that have expanded Medicaid," Kelly said. "We need to bring that back home. In those 10 years plus, all of the states around Kansas have expanded Medicaid, so not only are we bleeding money, we're bleeding our health care workers who are moving across state lines to work in Nebraska or Oklahoma, Missouri or Colorado, because there they can get reimbursed for their services."
This is one of the reasons it is important to her that Democrats gain as many legislative seats as they can, in an effort to break the Republican supermajorities in Topeka.