On Thursday, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson said it makes no sense to expand the state’s health insurance program for the poor and disabled because, “You have a fixed market of doctors that will take Medicaid, and if you add tens of thousands of people to that, you by nature will displace” their current patients.
By Masterson’s logic, if we broaden the rolls, others will be displaced. Current patients would have to make way for new patients.
He’s wrong.
The premise of expanding the program is that Kansas will receive the federal resources necessary to provide more services.
Hospitals will receive the funds to care for the indigent, instead of writing off millions in bad debt.
The scariest thing about Masterson’s feigned ignorance?
He’s OK with the current system where tens of thousands of Kansans are routinely denied healthcare because they can’t access insurance.
That’s the nut of it.
Even though the resources exist, legislators can’t be bothered because of some perverted philosophy that these people don’t deserve care.
It’s also worth noting that Masterson is this year’s national chairman of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that lobbies state governments to pursue an ultra-conservative agenda, including privatizing Medicare and Medicaid and repealing laws that expand public access to health care.
SOME ISSUES before legislators affect rural Kansans more than their urban counterparts.
The bill to fund private education with public tax dollars will overwhelmingly shortchange rural residents simply because we lack an alternative to our public schools.
Almost 100 percent of rural students attend public schools.
In the cities, however, the option to attend private academies and the like exist. Because they charge tuition, these schools predominately cater to the wealthy.
Once again, Republicans overwhelmingly favor a measure that would provide families $5,000 per child in vouchers to attend private schools or be home-schooled.
