By Ken Johnson, President & CEO of Hutchinson Regional Medical Center | July 13, 2020 Medicaid expansion continues as a hot topic of debate and discussion in this year’s legislative campaigns and preparations for the 2021 legislative session in Kansas. The Medicaid expansion story began in 2014 following the passage of the Affordable Care Act. […]

By Jesse Cross-Call and Matt Broaddus | July 19, 2020 The 35 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have implemented the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion are better positioned to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency and to prevent the ensuing economic downturn from worsening access to care, financial security, health outcomes, […]

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg | July 13, 2020 WASHINGTON — The coronavirus pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million American workers of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year, according to a new analysis. The […]

By the Editorial Advisory Board | July 10, 2020 Good job, Oklahoma voters. On June 30, you all managed to get something done that has eluded the Kansas Legislature for the better part of a decade. You successfully voted to expand Medicaid in your state, covering tens of thousands of low-income residents. Missouri voters will […]

By Matthew Kelly | July 3, 2020 A win is a win, but supporters of Missouri Medicaid expansion caution against reading too much into Tuesday’s election results in Oklahoma, where voters agreed to extend eligibility for the low-income health care program by a slender 1% margin. Oklahoma became the 37th state to endorse Medicaid expansion […]

By Leah Lawrence | July 1, 2020 The expansion of Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act was associated with an almost 10% absolute reduction in the number of patients with breast cancer without insurance, and a significant reduction in the number of women diagnosed with late-stage disease, researchers reported. Using data from almost […]

By Rachel Roubein | July 1, 2020 Oklahoma voters on Tuesday narrowly approved a ballot measure to extend Medicaid to tens of thousands of poor adults, making their state the first to expand government-backed health insurance during the pandemic. The vote, which passed with 50.5 percent support, also throws a wrench in the Trump administration’s […]

By Bob Grover and Jim Calvert | June 18, 2020 A continuing health care controversy in Kansas is whether or not to expand KanCare. Here we summarize the issue and where we stand today. One of the legacies left to us by former president Barack Obama was a medical insurance program frequently called “Obamacare” (actual […]

By Korinne Griffith | June 17, 2020 TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNW) – For the 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid, hundreds of thousands of people are without health insurance. According to the Journal of General Internal Medicine, more than 18 million Americans who are at an increased risk of getting a severe form of the […]