Kansas Gov. vetoes extending short-term insurance plans, calls for Medicaid expansion

May 20—TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly rejected a plan Thursday to extend short term insurance in Kansas while advocating once again for the state to expand Medicaid.

The plan would have allowed Kansans to continue to renew short-term insurance policies for 36 months. Under current law Kansans can only renew the 6-to-12 month policies once.

In a statement announcing her veto, Kelly called the policies "junk-insurance" that wouldn't protect consumers or cover pre-existing conditions.

"Signing this bill would cause more Kansas families to go bankrupt over medical bills," Kelly said.

Her veto message echoed critics who say that short-term policies, intended as stop-gap option, are bad for customers in the long run because they offer a lower level of coverage.

The veto is Kelly's 9th on a non-budget matter this year, more than any other governor has issued in the past 17 years.

Lawmakers will have the opportunity to vote to override Kelly's veto when they return to Topeka for the ceremonial last day of the session next week.

It will be a heavy lift, however, for proponents to gain enough votes for the extension to become law. The Senate passed the policy with a veto-proof majority earlier this month but 16 additional votes are needed in the House.

Sen. Beverly Gossage, an insurance agent and primary proponent of the bill, has previously testified that the extension would give Kansans more options for health insurance while they are out of work.

Gossage, a Eudora Republican, said Thursday she disagreed with the Governor's assessment of the bill and believed the policy would offer more protection to Kansans on short-term plans.

She said she thought the Governor and lawmakers who voted against the bill misunderstood it.

"If you have a short term medical plan, you develop cancer, it's covered. You develop a heart condition, it's covered. As long as that was not a pre-existing before you bought the policy plan, it will be covered in the plan," Gossage said. "What this does is that first 12 months if you develop cancer that could allow you 36 months to have that treatment for that cancer."

In vetoing the bill, Kelly said a better solution for improving healthcare access would be Medicaid expansion.

"If the Legislature wants to get serious about improving access to health care, they should join 38 other states and the District of Columbia and pass Medicaid expansion," Kelly said.

Kansas and Missouri are two of the holdout states for Medicaid expansion. Though Missouri voters approved expansion in a ballot initiative last year, the Legislature refused to allocate the required funds and Gov. Mike Parson canceled expansion plans.

In Kansas, expansion was considered dead on arrival among the Republican supermajority in the Legislature. Bipartisan efforts to expand the program last year died with former Senate President Susan Wagle refused to bring the measure to a vote if an anti-abortion constitutional amendment was not passed.

"Kansas Democrats have time and again proposed a proven way to make Kansas a healthier, more productive state through Medicaid expansion," said Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat, in a statement.

"It is telling that Kansas Republicans' solution is to expand predatory and discriminatory insurance policies."

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