“Getting ordinary people to write their story, and say why Medicaid should be expanded, we think, is the most powerful advocacy tool out there,” Sean Gatewood said.
Gatewood is a community outreach manager for the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition, a group that advocates for “quality healthcare in Kansas.” The KHCC stopped by Iola on Tuesday afternoon to facilitate a letter-writing campaign titled Mailing for Medicaid, in support of expanding Medicaid services in Kansas.
KHCC is a non-profit, non-partisan group. Gatewood said its goal is to improve healthcare for consumers in Kansas. “This expansion is very consumer-friendly,” he said.
Through hand-written and typed letters, along with a petition of signatures, the KHCC hopes to bring to light the need for better quality insurance in Kansas.
Gatewood said the group has been holding the sessions since early April, and have sent “between 300 and 400 letters” and have gathered “over 3,000 signatures.” Iola is the smallest community scheduled for the Mailing for Medicaid campaign. Gatewood said KHCC has already stopped in Topeka, Lawrence, Merriam and Wichita, among other cities.
Georgia Masterson, a member of the Rural Health Initiative, said she was contacted by KHCC and efforts were made to bring the campaign here.
“We think we are generating a pretty large outpouring,” Gatewood said. “A pretty sizeable majority of the population is in favor of the expansion.”
Some of that majority showed up in the Community National Bank basement on Tuesday, armed with their own stories and opinions to send to legislators, Governor Sam Brownback, representatives and local newspaper editors. KHCC contributed some sample letters to “get creative juices flowing,” as well as envelopes, stamps, copiers, laptops and paper.
SUSAN ROBERSON, Kimberly Rogers and Stephen Busby are three from the community who came to write letters to their state representatives.
All three had personal reasons for attending the session, as well as opinions on the matter from a state perspective.
“I feel sorry for these young families that have children and no insurance,” Roberson said. “As a grandma, it’s a heartwrenching situation.”
Her son, Adam, who is 33, deals with physical and mental disabilities. “He has been struggling for three years to get medical insurance,” she said.
“He can’t get his meds that keep him from having seizures.”
Rogers, who recently started working as a coordinator with SKIL in Chanute, has three daughters who are all single mothers. They have no access to health insurance.
“It sucks being either divorced or pregnant and having to get help anymore,” Rogers said.
She said her daughters do not have access to doctors or medications for their children.
“They go to the ER whenever they have a medical emergency,” she said.
Carolyn Weinhold, a community outreach coordinator for KHCC, looked over Rogers’ letter before she sent if off to be mailed.
“It’s an inefficient way to go about things,” Weinhold said.
Busby said his son Christian is currently covered under his Medicaid insurance, but when he graduates from high school in two years — and then on to trade school — he will be out on his own.
“In two years he won’t have medical coverage,” he said. “Is it going to be Obamacare or no care?”
He said he believes the United States is caught between coverages right now, and needs to take the steps to make the changes happen.
“We need to show that we can take care of our people, not just a few,” he said. “Medicaid expansion has to happen.”
THE AFFORDABLE Care Act mandate was passed in 2010 and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012.
However, the “curveball,” as Duane Goosen refers to it, is that the Supreme Court did not require the states to expand Medicaid. Goosen is vice president for fiscal and health policies with the Kansas Health Institute.
“Kansas has a choice to make,” he said.
He said there are approximately 380,000 Kansas on Medicaid or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), and an additional 350,000 without health insurance. The majority of those with Medicaid are children.
“It is quite difficult for an adult to qualify for Medicaid,” Goosen said.
The expansion would allow for increased eligibility, allowing adults who are under 138 percent of the national poverty level (around $32,000 a year for a family of four) to be eligible for government insurance. He said the KHI estimates this would add 110,000 people to Medicaid in the state.
He said the Kansas legislature does not seem to be placing this issue on their front burner — he expects around half of the states will choose to expand.
“I’d still place Kansas in the ‘undecided’ category,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to be getting any serious discussion.”
He said cost is a major concern. The federal government will cover 100 percent of the costs for the first three years, then it would move to a 90/10-percent agreement with the state. Goosen said the legislature is having enough issues with the budget as it is — it is currently halted over sales tax reduction issues — and is leery about whether the federal government will hold up its end of the bargain.
“There’s probably some worry that maybe the federal government can’t be trusted to make good on that agreement in the long run,” Goosen said.
MORE PEOPLE began to file in as the others had their letters proof-read and put in the pile of letters to be mailed.
John Robertson, the grant writer with Thrive Allen County, was also on-hand to help facilitate with the KHCC.
“We have experienced the downside of healthcare reform,” Robertson said. “We’re supposed to be seeing the benefits.”
He said the legislation needs to see that people in Kansas want, and need, the Medicaid expansion to happen — for the sake of those who can’t access decent healthcare.
Josh Dieker, a project specialist with KHCC, said they will continue to work as long as it takes.
“We’ll keep going until we get Medicaid expanded,” Dieker said as he printed off more copies of the letters.
