TOPEKA — The Kansas Hospital Association has hired former Bush Administration Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt, who is also a former Utah governor, to help craft a Medicaid expansion plan for Kansas that Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislators might support. The Kansas Health Institute reported the association has been eyeing Iowa and Arkansas, in which Republican politicians finally agreed to expand Medicaid through the use of private insurance companies. Some Kansas legislators have said they would consider a similar proposal. As part of President Obama’s health care reform act, the federal government offered to pay all of the costs of expanding Medicaid, which offers health coverage for the poor and some elderly. However, some Republican governors, including Brownback, refused the expansion. Brownback’s refusal has left more 85,000 Kansas adults without health coverage, even with Obamacare. Kansas has some of the nation’s toughest Medicaid rules and adults with no children are not eligible for Medicaid no matter how poor they are and adults with children are eligible but only if they are extremely poor, the KHI reported. In addition, Brownback’s refusal will cost Kansas hospitals $66 million next year, hospital association CEO Tom Bell said.
Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2 p.m.
