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For Immediate Release:
February 29, 2024
Contact:
Grace Hoge
[email protected]
ICYMI: Expanding Medicaid Reduces
Healthcare Costs, Increases Access to
Preventive Care
KEY QUOTE: “The lack of Medicaid expansion in Kansas is devastating to women, and to all those with chronic illnesses, and expanding Medicaid would help keep our rural communities intact.”
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In my more than 50 years as a specialist in diabetes care, it has almost always been the case that if people do not have access to affordable care, and have limited means — particularly if they are uninsured — they will choose to feed their family and keep a roof overhead first, and neglect their health care, with devastating consequences to themselves.
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Medicaid expansion would increase the likelihood that care will be available earlier in many other chronic diseases, and just as with diabetes care, many disorders — including both cancer and cardiovascular disease — are disorders where prevention, early diagnoses and early treatment save not only lives and health, but reduce costs.
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If the opposition to [Medicaid] expansion is a fear that it will cost the state more, that fear is misguided.
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Hospitals outside larger cities need the funds that would accrue from Medicaid expansion, which in many situations are closer to the real costs of care than private insurance pays. Medicaid expansion in Kansas would provide this, and reduce the costs of care as well.
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Medicaid expansion in Kansas is one of those instances where doing what is right from a moral point of view is both scientifically sound and saves money. I hope we can get Medicaid expansion passed during this session of the Legislature.
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