choice in healthcare

I will protect people that have pre-existing conditions.

I have a 4-step plan that will be implemented during my first 100 days in office as Governor:

I will immediately call on our Attorney General to work with the Legislature to look into amending the legal codes for healthcare. Medical malpractice lawsuits have skyrocketed the cost of healthcare for Kansans by forcing physicians to practice defensive medicine through tests and treatments which otherwise might be optional. Rural Kansas are especially affected as obstetricians, surgeons, and other providers move to urban settings or retire in the face of escalating insurance premiums. Many Free State Governors have advanced the legal reforms necessary to reverse that trend. If the Legislature is unwilling to act, I will sign an Executive Order that will force insurance providers to lower the threat of bearing of malpractice lawsuits. I will also add a stipulation that the legal test for malpractice is more properly defined given the new technology and medicines that go to treatments. I will also allow patients that are already on state healthcare to be allowed to use experimental drugs that have shown improvements in clinical studies. I believe that a major reason in high healthcare costs is due to this.
The Governor has shown reluctance in signing a Free State Party piece of legislation that would strengthen KanCare. Under the bill that is in the legislature, KanCare would be expanded to cover Kansans earning less than 138% of the federal poverty level. — $17,236 for an individual or $35,535 for a family of four. The Kansas Health Institute estimates that 90,000 of the 130,000 Kansans expected to enroll would be non-disabled adults who are not currently eligible for KanCare. The remaining 40,000 would be children. The bill also will require the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to refer all non-disabled adults who are unemployed or working fewer than 20 hours a week to a job training program. Parents caring for young children would be exempt. The Commonwealth Fund estimated in a 2017 report that only 11 percent of Kansans likely to enroll in expansion coverage are unemployed. If Governor Smith is unwilling to support this measure, I will make this bill a priority as Governor and I will sign it into law. For those of you that are not supportive of this measure let me be frank. Washington has not addressed the issue of healthcare. Until Washington does something about ObamaCare, Kansas must work with Washington. A recent estimate by the Kansas Health Institute put the cost of expanding KanCare at $41.7 million. Most of the expansion would be covered by “privilege fees” paid by the managed care organizations that administer KanCare and projected savings generated from using federal dollars to cover services and programs now funded by the state.Research conducted by economists at Kansas State University indicates the spike in revenue would be nearly enough to cover the state’s share of expansion costs.
Kansas is forever grateful that we have a world class research hospital. With that being said, I am calling on the state legislature to work in passing legislation that will allow our great researchers to continue to develop new medicines to treat illnesses that affect us. I will sign an Executive Order that will quicken the process to receive state grants through Kansas Department of Health and Environment. To accompany the Executive Order, I will be proactive in pushing the Federal and State Affairs Committee to allow our research hospitals to receive increased funding through Congress and the Department of Human and Health Services.
Kansans with disabilities will no longer be in fear of finding employment. I will advise the Attorney General of Kansas and the United States Attorney General to further investigate any instances of discrimination based on workers with disabilities. I will force the Legislature into increasing fines for any company that partakes in this despicable act. I will also advise the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment to increase grants for new technologies that can help those with disabilities when working.

This is only the beginning. As Governor, I will not stop pursing legislative action until the costs of healthcare have been lowered. I will not allow any more hospitals to close under my leadership. You deserve better. Kansas deserves better. On my first day in the Governor’s office, I will call on our legislators to regularly meet with healthcare experts to continue to develop policies that will benefit all of Kansas.