Lessons Learned from the Field

This summer and into the fall, the Alliance for a Healthy Kansas has been traveling the state to build support for expanding Kancare.  Over the course of our travels, we have engaged thousands of Kansans and partnered with hundreds of organizations — and we have learned a lot from our efforts to date.  Earlier today, we emailed candidates the below message to let them know what we learned from our travels around Kansas, and how critical it is to expand KanCare for our state.

Thank you for all of your support.  Let’s keep up the hard work of engaging Kansans in our campaign to expand KanCare.

Dear Candidate:

As you prepare for the last 34 days of the campaign, we wanted to let you know how expanding KanCare impacts Kansans, and what we have heard from Kansas voters in the past few months.

Since June, the Alliance for a Healthy Kansas has hosted 20 events in counties all over the state and we have ten more to go. We’re proud to say that everywhere we go, we hear how disappointed people are that Kansas has not expanded Medicaid for more than150,000 hardworking Kansans that fall into the health coverage gap.

These people are waitresses, college students, mechanics, and they live and work in communities like yours. They earn too much to qualify for KanCare, but too little to be eligible for financial help to buy private insurance.

There is overwhelming support to expand KanCare in community after community we visit.  Thousands of Kansans have volunteeredto join our effort to expand KanCare.  More than 75 percent of Kansans favor a budget neutral, Kansas solution to expanding KanCare.

Many Kansans we met are shocked to learn that the state of Kansas has forfeited more than $1.4 billion since 2014 as a result of the decision to not expand KanCare. They want the state to bring back the $1.9 million in taxpayer funds we lose each day by not expanding KanCare.

They understand the impact this decision has on their local hospital and their community and they want the jobs and the economic impact KanCare expansion will give them. With more Kansas hospitals at risk of closure, Kansans don’t want their community to be the next community to lose a hospital, like Independence did a year ago, because of a failure to expand KanCare.
More than anything, though, we hear the stories of Kansans whose health and financial security is at risk because they are in the coverage gap.  Expanding KanCare can improve their health and also provide a pathway out of poverty – a hand up, not a hand out.

Expanding KanCare will increase access to health care for thousands of hard-working Kansans, protect our hospitals, and bring our tax dollars back into the state to help our economy. You can learn more at www.expandkancare.com. We look forward to continuing this conversation in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Alliance for a Healthy Kansas Steering Committee

Alliance for a Healthy Kansas

Health Reform Resource Project

Kansas Appleseed

Kansas Association  for the Medically Underserved

Kansas Center for Economic Growth

Kansas Hospital Association