Dear editor,
I am writing today (Tuesday) from the basement of the Community National Bank where a group of residents of Allen and Neosho counties have gathered to write letters to encourage Governor Brownback, State Representative Bideau and State Senator Tyson to accept Medicaid expansion for hard-working Kansas families without the benefit and resources for health insurance.
Without health insurance these neighbors cannot get quality health care at a local doctor’s office. Instead they avoid and delay treatment, often resulting in serious consequences to their health. When finally they cannot put off treatment any longer they usually resort to the one place in our community that cannot turn them away, the ER of our hospital. Emergency room treatment is both the most expensive and least desirable place for patients to get routine health care. What they need is a medical home and lasting relationship with their own doctor. This results in better health outcomes, less time sick and a better sense of health and wellbeing, all at a cost far less than emergency room treatment.
Beyond helping our low income working neighbors get quality health care, Medicaid expansion is also vital to our community’s ability to sustain our public hospital. Over the past two years our whole community has rallied around building and equipping the new 25-bed critical access hospital that presently is being constructed on the edge of town on North Kentucky. We have voted an increase in sales tax, committed local government funds and raised funds from private donations for this purpose.
We even created our own community foundation which has raised over $2,000,000 in private donations to equip the new facility. We have done everything and more than could be expected. For many residents it has been the most important civic cause. Medicaid expansion would contribute a source of additional funding that would help us sustain our new hospital over the long term.
Like all hospitals in Kansas, especially small rural hospitals, we looked forward to Medicaid expansion as a source of funds that would compensate us for services that otherwise would go uncompensated. These funds came at a cost. The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) had other provisions that took funds away from our hospital. It brought both lower compensation for Medicare services and a reduction of disproportionate share funds (approximately $500,000 for our hospital) that formerly helped pay for uninsured patients.
If our state declines Medicaid expansion we will be taking the “bad” and leaving the “good” on the table for other states. With Medicaid expansion the ACA is a good deal for our community, without expansion it is a burden. We have gathered in this basement today to ask our state government to do right by our hospital and community.
John Robertson,
Iola, Kan.
Letter to the editor — May 23, 2013
