Kansans deserve better from KanCare
February 20, 2017
KanCare is in trouble. The state of Kansas’ Medicaid program, which has been run by three Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) since being privatized in 2013, is beset by administrative and operational problems that threaten the health and safety of its beneficiaries, among the most vulnerable Kansans. Patients, advocates, health care providers, and others engaged with […]
Politics, elections, and expanding KanCare
September 27, 2016
On August 3rd, expanding KanCare became much more likely than it had been the day before (in Kansas, the Medicaid program is known as KanCare). What happened? August 2nd was primary election day in Kansas. After years of ongoing budget crises, cuts to state agencies, and ideological steamrolling in the statehouse, Kansas voters had seemingly […]
The Muddled, Messy, Maddening, Mystifying, Magnificent Marketplace
February 5, 2014
Error messages. Frozen screens. Inability to log in. Inability to log out. Endless buffering. Vanishing user names. Lost applications. By now, anyone who’s been paying attention — and probably even many who aren’t — knows about the disastrous start of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) federal Health Insurance Marketplace. It was described, at best, as […]
The Freedom to Get Sick and Go Broke
September 23, 2013
FreedomWorks, a self-declared leader in the “fight for lower taxes, less government, and more freedom,” wants you to burn your Obamacare draft card. Now, there’s no such thing as an “Obamacare draft card.” But FreedomWorks has rigged one up: atop a photocopy of a 1960s style draft card appears the word “Obamacare.” You can print […]
Kansas Legislature Silent on Medicaid Expansion
June 12, 2013
Oscar Wilde wrote that a cynic is one who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. If that’s true, Kansas lawmakers just completed a very cynical legislative session. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides two routes to expanded health insurance coverage. First, through new insurance marketplaces and tax subsidies, millions of currently […]
Making the Kansas Health Insurance Exchange Work for Consumers
July 28, 2011
Note: An expanded version of this post was originally published by Kansas Health Institute on July 14, 2011. Anna Lambertson, Executive Director of the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition and Sheldon Weisgrau, Director of the Health Reform Resource Project co-authored the original op-ed. Kansas consumers who try to purchase health insurance face many challenges. The number […]
