Kansas City Star, March 18, 2020 (913 Section)
Speaking Out Against Kansas Catholic Leaders’ Choice of Constitutional Amendment on Abortion Over Medicaid Expansion
KCMS Foundation past President Sheila McGreevy, MD, in this commentary calls on Kansas Catholic leaders’ decision to oppose Medicaid expansion as leverage to gain a constitutional amendment restricting abortion. Read the full article.
Excerpts:
I am a Catholic physician who is very disappointed in the decision of Kansas Catholic leaders to withhold support for Medicaid expansion in the state in order to leverage support for anti-abortion legislation.
I worked at Duchesne Clinic in Kansas City, Kansas, and St. Vincent’s Clinic in Leavenworth, Kansas, from 2003 to 2013. There, I had the privilege and responsibility of taking care of low-income residents of Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties who could not afford private insurance and were not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid.
Kansas City Star, February 6, 2020
Making the Case for Medicaid Expansion
This commentary in the February 6 Kansas City Star eloquently makes the case for Medicaid expansion in Missouri. The author, Michael O’Dell, MD, MSHA, FAAFP, is KCMS past president and editor of our journal, Kansas City Medicine. Medicaid expansion will save money for the State of Missouri, help keep people healthy and working, and help keep rural hospitals open, he writes. Read the full article.
Excerpts:
The recent news that elected leaders in Kansas have forged a bipartisan compromise to expand Medicaid in the Sunflower State after years at a political impasse should be a lesson for those of us here in Missouri.
As a family care doctor, I’ve seen firsthand how hardworking Missourians can slip through the cracks of our health care system. In our state, more than half a million adults are uninsured, mostly because they have jobs that simply don’t offer coverage. Earning too little to afford to buy their own insurance, they’re caught in the limbo of this coverage gap.
Hundreds of thousands of Missourians face choices between lifesaving care for their loved ones and themselves or their economic survival.