Expanding Medicaid is very pro-business

If Kansas truly wants to be a pro-business state, it would take advantage of the federal government’s offer to expand its Medicaid guidelines.
Why?
The cost of health insurance is sinking small businesses.
Fifteen years ago, about 84 percent of those employed at small businesses received health insurance through their employers. Today, the number is about 75 percent.
Increasingly, small businesses have been forced to drastically reduce their participation in health insurance because of higher insurance costs and the burden of administering the benefit.
On the flip side, for many employees their company’s health insurance program eats up too much of their paycheck so they don’t participate or they work too few hours to qualify for a company’s program.
If Kansas were to participate in the Medicaid expansion, more residents could receive tax credits to apply to their health insurance premiums. And the more people enrolled in health insurance, the more secure the payments to area hospitals and clinics.
Under the expansion, a family of four could earn up to $35,355 and receive Medicaid benefits. That number is equivalent to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Once that family earns above that level, it can qualify for tax credits to apply to its health insurance premiums. The credits are figured on a sliding scale based on one’s income.
But, because Kansas has said no to the expansion, the same size family is shut out from receiving either Medicaid or tax credits if its annual income is above $7,770 — the state’s upper cap for Medicaid for a family of four — or below $23,550, the FPL.
The Affordable Care Act was designed specifically to help the category of people that Kansas chooses to discriminate against — the working poor. If Medicaid is not expanded an estimated 78,400 will fall into this Medicaid Gap.

STATE legislators have the opportunity to take advantage of this win/win proposal. Our bet is if proposed, area businesses and concerned citizens would rally their support.
It’s worth a try.
— Susan Lynn