Governor: Kansas will join legal brief backing Florida in suit over Medicaid expansion

TOPEKA – Kansas will join a brief in support of a lawsuit brought against the Obama administration by the state of Florida, Gov. Sam Brownback said in a statement Monday.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has indicated that states that do not expand Medicaid could lose federal funding, prompting the lawsuit from Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Brownback has also resisted Medicaid expansion and, like Scott, accused the federal government of trying to coerce the state into expansion.

“The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the federal government is prohibited from coercing the states to expand Medicaid,” Brownback said in a statement.

“Kansas intends to join Texas through an amicus brief supporting Florida’s effort to stop the Obama administration from cutting off health care dollars for the Low Income Pool in an effort to force Obamacare upon the states,” Brownback continued. “In joining with Florida and Texas, Kansas is protecting the states’ right to make their own determinations about these issues.”

Scott first floated the idea of a suit in April after federal health officials said they would be more likely to continue a $2.2 billion hospital funding program known as the Low Income Pool if state lawmakers voted to expand health care coverage to low-income Floridians.

The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court, seeks to prohibit the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from linking the two decisions. The suit also asks that the centers be required to“immediately reconsider the renewal of Florida’s LIP program.”

“President Obama’s sudden end to the Low Income Pool healthcare program to leverage us for Obamacare is illegal and a blatant overreach of executive power,” Scott said in a statement.

The state is relying on the 2012 Supreme Court ruling, which allowed states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, to make its case.

A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

This story was originally published May 4, 2015 at 1:57 PM with the headline "Governor: Kansas will join legal brief backing Florida in suit over Medicaid expansion."