Sedgwick County ducking fight over expanding Medicaid in Kansas; 'not a county issue'

Nov. 18--The county with the most uninsured residents in Kansas will almost certainly go to to the state Legislature this year with no position on whether to expand Medicaid to cover them.

An effort to add a plank supporting Medicaid expansion to Sedgwick County's annual legislative platform died Tuesday with two of the four commissioners saying they don't think the county should be involved in the issue.

"It's a state issue, not a county issue," said Commission Chairman Pete Meitzner. "I think it drives in a lane that's not ours, is my personal feeling."

"I concur," interjected Commissioner David Dennis.

Right now, nothing can pass without three out of four commissioners' support.

For about the next three weeks, the County Commission will have only four members following the abrupt resignation Friday of embattled Commissioner Michael O'Donnell. He stepped down rather than face a district attorney's ouster proceeding over his role in a 2019 smear campaign against Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple and the ensuing cover-up attempt.

Medicaid expansion is likely to be one of the biggest issues state legislators take up this year when their session begins in January and Sedgwick County has the largest number of uninsured residents in the state.

A September report by the Kansas Health Institute pegged the number of Kansans without health insurance at 241,000, about 10 percent of the state's population.

Just under 50,000 of them live in Sedgwick County, the report said.

If Medicaid expansion were to pass, they'd be eligible to join the state's KanCare program, with the federal government picking up 90 percent of the cost.

The issue has been rolling around the Legislature since 2014, when then-Gov. Sam Brownback launched a poison-pill bill to prohibit him, or any future governor, from accepting federal funding for it without the approval of both the House and Senate.

That means Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is prevented from accepting the federal government's offer without approval from the Republican-dominated Legislature.

Both houses did approve it in 2017, but Brownback vetoed the bill.

Last year, the House had passed Medicaid expansion but Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, blocked it from coming to a Senate floor vote by tying it to an anti-abortion constitutional amendment she supported.

Both measures fizzled out.

Things are equally deadlocked at the county.

Even getting a fifth commissioner in office will probably not break the jam, because commissioners Jim Howell and Lacey Cruse are on opposite sides of the issue.

Howell opposes Medicaid expansion. Cruse supports it.

That pretty much cancels out the opportunity to pass anything without a vote from either Meitzner or Dennis.

O'Donnell's immediate replacement will be selected in a mini-election among 31 members of the Republican Precinct Committee in the 2nd District, which includes Haysville and parts of southwestern Sedgwick County.

That commissioner, virtually certain to be a Republican, will hold the seat only until the end of O'Donnell's current term, which ends Jan. 10.

If the new member agrees with Howell on Medicaid expansion, Cruse would almost certainly vote against any resolution opposing it.

So if Meitzner and Dennis hold their positions, there wouldn't be a majority and nothing would go north to Topeka with the commission's stamp of approval.

On Jan. 10, the temporary commissioner will be replaced by Democrat Sarah Lopez, who beat O'Donnell in the Nov. 3 election. But that wouldn't change the situation either.

Lopez, now an information technology manager for Ascension Healthcare, supports Medicaid expansion.

But if she and Cruse teamed up on a county resolution supporting it, that would be equally unlikely to pass with Howell's opposition and Meitzner and Dennis wanting to stay out of it.

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