By Greg Lower | Aug. 1, 2019 Rural health officials are pushing to expand KanCare, the state’s Medicaid program, to cover nearly 150,000 additional people. Dennis Franks, Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer, said rural health care in Kansas is facing a crisis, and expanding the program would not only help hospitals but […]

By the Editorial Board | July 30, 2019 A new study shows lack of Medicaid expansion in 14 states, including Kansas, has caused 15,600 deaths that likely would have been averted with full expansion. The study is the latest in a growing body of evidence that Medicaid expansion is a cost-effective way to provide health […]

By Sheldon Weisgrau | July 30, 2019 Fifty-four years ago, on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Independence, Missouri, and signed the Social Security Amendments into law, creating the Medicare and Medicaid programs. These two programs – which passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan votes – have served as foundations of the health […]

By Michael Hiltzik | July 22, 2019 Adversaries of Medicaid expansion have always pointed to the lack of evidence that enrollment in Medicaid improves health and saves lives, and therefore the expansion is a waste. A new study should put that argument to rest, permanently. The researchers found not only that the expansion of Medicaid […]

By Sheldon Weisgrau | July 15, 2019 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 gimmick comes from the state of Utah, which recently received federal approval […]

By the Editorial Board | July 10, 2019 Nevada was an early adopter of Medicaid expansion in 2014, and since then has fought against Republican-led efforts to weaken the program. Now, new studies are starting to quantify the gains we’ve achieved through our efforts. And those gains are impressive. JAMA Cardiology, published by the American […]

By the Editorial Board | July 14, 2019 A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine provides considerable evidence that Medicaid work requirements, even if they sound good on paper, are in practice simply an architecture of cruelty that produces no discernible positive effects, simply a lot of pain. The study, which […]

By Wen-Chieh Lin, Ph.D., Sydney McClendon, Madison Hoover, M.S. | July 15, 2019 Despite gains in insurance coverage since 2009 for nonelderly Kansas adults age 19-64, many remain uninsured. Based on the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, 201,275 (11.9 percent) nonelderly Kansas adults were uninsured in 2017. This issue brief builds on information […]

By Paul Krugman | June 24, 2019 When Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning kept Kansas from expanding Medicaid for yet another year — and yes, he deserves credit for keeping some 150,000 Kansans uninsured even now — he insisted that it would just have to wait because there was so much heavy legislative lifting yet […]

By Paul Krugman | June 24, 2019 Over the weekend The Washington Post published a heart-rending description of a pop-up medical clinic in Cleveland, Tenn. — a temporary installation providing free care for two days on a first-come-first-served basis. Hundreds of people showed up many hours before the clinic opened, because rural America is suffering […]