The very thought that Kansas legislators would have control over Medicare should cause every Kansas senior to quake in his boots.
The possibility became closer to reality Tuesday night when Gov. Sam Brownback quietly signed the legislation into law.
Kansas now joins eight other Republican-dominated states in a compact to ignore the dictates of the Affordable Care Act, including the disbursement of Medicare and Medicaid dollars.
Worst case scenario? The federal assistance seniors rely on when in need of medication, hospitalization or a visit to the doctor would dry up. With the state in control, those funds could be used for “better means,” such as balancing the state budget.
Far-fetched? Last year, the state redirected $9.5 million in tobacco settlement funds from the state’s Children’s Initiative Fund to the general fund. As part of the class action suit, the monies are supposed to support early childhood development programs.
This year, Kansas received $62.2 million through the same tobacco settlement funds. Once again, the money is being withheld from programs to benefit children.
More than $1 billion has been “lifted” from the state’s transportation fund over the past five years to pay for non-related items, including $140 million to pay for public school transportation, and $20 million to cover Statehouse renovation bonds. The Legislature is on track to transfer another $527 million from the “KDOT bank,” as legislators are fond of calling it, to the state general fund.
Entitlement programs -— Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — long have been the target of ultraconservatives. Americans for Prosperity and Libertarians make no bones about the need for people to wean themselves off the teat of government programs. Putting Medicare and Medicaid in the hands of state legislators takes the state closer to that objective.
That’s why the AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, is against the measure, as is Sandy Praeger, Kansas insurance commissioner.
Praeger’s stance comes as little surprise. All along, she’s been a fan of the new health insurance plan.
That the AARP is against the measure should give conservative Kansans pause.
“Placing the health care of Kansans in jeopardy is not the way,” to show disfavor with the Affordable Care Act, said Maren Turner, state director of the AARP in an interview with the Kansas Health Institute.
LEGISLATORS pooh-pooh the reaction by seniors and health care professionals.
The legislation calls for the funding of Medicare and Medicaid to be allocated to states in lump sums from which they will direct the proceeds.
