Affordable Healthcare
Vote for candidates who support Affordable, Quality Health Care
Congressional Democrats support Working and Middle Class families
- Passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), making health insurance coverage available to every American regardless of their age, income, or pre-existing conditions.
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- Continually draft and pass legislation that would lower drug costs.
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The Trump Administration and 18 Republican state attorneys, including Kansas, are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) as unconstitutional.
Striking down the ACA would increase the number of uninsured people by 20 million, or 65 percent, the Urban Institute estimated in late 2019. (Urban also provided estimates by state and demographic group.) The following would also be true:
- Insurers could once again put annual and lifetime limits on coverage, including for people with employer plans.
- Young adults would no longer be able to stay on their parents’ plans up to age 26.
- Insurers could reimpose cost sharing for preventive services, including under employer plans and Medicare.
- Reversing the ACA’s changes to how Medicare pays plans and providers and how state Medicaid programs determine eligibility would cause massive disruption.
- Medicare beneficiaries would face higher prescription drug costs due to the Medicare “donut hole” reopening.
- Higher-income households, meanwhile, would reap $45 billion in tax cuts each year, with an average $46,000 per year for those with incomes over $1 million.
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As a doctor, a champion of Medicaid expansion and a patient advocate in the legislature, Barbara will be the Senator that Kansans need. As the first woman physician to serve in the U.S. Senate, Barbara will:
- Support an innovative public health insurance option to ensure Kansans always have an affordable healthcare choice, while maintaining private health insurance options for Americans who choose to keep them;
- Preserve protections for the 465,000 non-elderly Kansans with pre-existing conditions, even as they’re under fire from partisan attacks and special interests;
- Protect Medicaid and Medicare from cuts, and ensure they’re fully-funded into the future;
- Advocate for commonsense prescription drug policies that allow the federal government to negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies;
- Rein in surprise medical billing;
- Work to strengthen rural hospitals and clinics and the countless services they provide smaller communities.
I know firsthand what it’s like to fight serious illness without health insurance or access to quality medical care. I will never forget the crippling anxiety I felt each day when I opened the mail. It took me ten years to pay off my medical bills. We must do better for our families.
- ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE
I want to make sure that every Kansan who wants healthcare gets healthcare without breaking the bank. The best way to achieve equal access to healthcare is to enhance the Affordable Care Act while allowing the health insurance industry to continue to provide private options. Every person should be free to choose between a fortified public option, or private, employer, or union – funded coverage – including those under age 65, and individuals with pre-existing conditions.
- FUNDING MEDICAID EXPANSION
Currently 150,000 Kansans fall through the gaps in our health insurance system. That is unacceptable. Kansas is one of 14 states that have failed to utilize the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansion. The Affordable Care Act allows for expanded investment in local critical healthcare infrastructure, which our rural communities desperately need. Kansas hospitals have had to be extremely creative to give the best care possible to their communities. We need to work with them and expanding the ACA will allow for additional investment in local healthcare. My top priority is to ensure federal dollars are available to provide healthcare to everyone who needs it.
- LOWERING PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES
The price of prescription medications increases each year, and many Kansans can no longer afford their medications, even if they have health insurance. Right now the federal government is blocked from negotiating for lower drug prices. That policy is not working. America is the wealthiest country in the world, it is unacceptable that there are people who must decide between taking their medication and feeding their family. We must empower the government to negotiate lower prescription drug prices under Medicare Part D so that life saving medication becomes more affordable for all.
Kansas Democrats believe ALL families should have access to Health Care
Democrats want to make health care available and affordable for every Kansan. Medicaid expansion is part of that plan:
- The ACA increased federal funding to states to help cover health care costs for Medicaid-eligible citizens. The Brownback/Kobach Administration refused to take those funds, and conservative Republicans have continued to block all efforts to expand medicaid in Kansas:
- Keeping 150,000 working Kansans from health care coverage. These families earn too much to be eligible for Kancare (Kansas medicaid program) but too little to be eligible for help to pay for private insurance
- Costing the state more than $4.3 Billion in lost tax money coming back to Kansas
- 1/3 of Rural Hospitals are vulnerable to closures or have closed
Kansas Democrats
- Prior to the 2020 Kansas legislative session Gov. Kelly reached across the isle and made a deal with Republican leadership in the Kansas Senate to expand Medicaid. Conservative Republicans blocked the vote until legislators voted to put a constitutional amendment to ban abortion on the ballot.
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- Fought to expand Medicaid and return 2.8 Billion dollars in tax refunds to Kansas.
Read More - Read more history of the fight to expand Medicaid in Kansas
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Republicans are putting Kansans’ lives at risk!
Republicans continually work to destroy the Affordable Care Act and end protections for Kansans with pre-existing conditions.
Kansas Democrats are fighting to fix problems in the system and to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Kansas Platform Seeks to Keep Kansans Healthy
The health of our citizens is important to the health of our state. Children will only reach their full potential with a healthy start in life; all Kansans can benefit from good nutrition, physical activity, and health care services throughout our lives.
Kansas Democrats believe that every Kansan should have social and physical environments that promote good health and access to high quality affordable health care from birth until death.
Many of the health initiatives Kansas Democrats have supported in the past have been addressed with the passage of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act. We recognize the benefits of this law to Kansans and support its provisions to:
promote wellness and preventive care;
provide insurance coverage for children up to age 26 on their family’s insurance;
make coverage portable between employers without concern for preexisting conditions;
lower premiums;
expand coverage for uninsured Kansans;
and protect the privacy of Medical Records.
However, certain provisions that make the ACA workable have not been enacted in Kansas—notably the expansion of Medicaid coverage to thousands of eligible persons. Kansas Democrats will work to expand Medicaid coverage in Kansas.