Despite all the rhetoric, in the end with budget crisis looming, Kansas is advancing plans to expand medicaid - with some catches.
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A Kansas House committee has drafted a plan for expanding the state's Medicaid program for the poor and disabled in line with the federal health care overhaul.
The bill introduced Monday in the House by the Vision 2020 Committee would impose a special tax on hospitals and other health care providers to raise any state matching funds required to tap extra federal dollars.
It also would allow the state to require able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work.
The catch is a big one - in order to receive medicaid expansion you must be actively working or in pursuit of work. This may of course present a difficulty for those who are physically or mentally disabled, but the fact that the door has been cracked open just a little bit.
http://cjonline.com/...
The legislation expands the KanCare program – the state’s managed care program – to include individuals earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s the income threshold that will allow Kansas to receive additional federal funding to help pay for part of the cost of expansion.
The legislation sets out to help extend coverage to approximately 169,000 people, and collect about $2.2 billion federal funds between 2016 and 2020.
A number of moderate Republicans sit on the House Vision 2020 Committee, which put forward the bill after hearings on Medicaid expansion. The committee chairman, Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, said the legislation attempts to balance the “political realities” within the state through the a requirement in addition to financial realities.
“It balances the need to pay for this expanded service without going into the state general fund because there is no money there,” Sloan said.
Jim Ward, (D-Wichita) had prior offered a bill to advance medicaid expansion without the hoops.
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A House Democrat introduced a package of bills Tuesday to counter Republicans blocking expansion of Medicaid in the state, to allow people with disabilities to exit the state’s overhauled Medicaid program and to abandon a plan for joining a multi-state compact to operate Medicare for the elderly.
While the budget crisis may be the motivating factor, Rep. Ward's continuous advocacy of medicaid expansion may have acted as a pestle that helped grind down the resistance to expansion.