Brownback newsletter is ‘reprehensible’

An e-mail newsletter from Gov. Sam Brownback’s office had so many offensive claims and so much misinformation about Medicaid expansion that it is difficult to know where to begin.

▪  How about the claim that Medicaid expansion is some liberal plot to usher in “government-run health care”? On the contrary, it is a responsible plan to extend privately provided health care to about 150,000 low-income Kansans, most of whom are working.

▪  Or that this “Obamacare ruse” would “primarily benefit a small number of big-city hospitals, not smaller rural hospitals”? Larger hospitals would get more funding because they serve more low-income patients. But according to the Kansas Hospital Association (among those supposed liberals supporting expansion), all hospitals would benefit.

▪  Or that expanding Medicaid without first eliminating waiting lists for other services for the disabled is “morally reprehensible”? Eliminating the waiting lists is an important goal, but it is unrelated to the funding and services provided by Medicaid expansion. And if eliminating the waiting lists is such a moral priority, why didn’t Brownback do that instead of eliminating state income taxes for more than 300,000 business owners?

In addition to helping needy Kansans and helping shore up Kansas hospitals, Medicaid expansion would boost the Kansas economy. A 2014 study estimated that expansion could return $2.2 billion of our federal taxes to Kansas between 2016 and 2020, which could result in more than 3,700 new jobs by 2020.

In the past, Brownback has said that he was open to expansion but had some questions and concerns. The newsletter makes clear that not only is he closed to expansion, he is hostile to it.

For the editorial board, Phillip Brownlee

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Brownback newsletter is ‘reprehensible’."