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New Report Says Medicaid Expansion Would Pay For Itself

Jasleen Kaur
/
flickr Creative Commons

A report released today by a group of health foundations backing Medicaid expansion says expansion would more than pay for itself.

The report by a national health consulting firm says that expanding Kansas’ Medicaid program--known as KanCare--would reduce what the state is now spending on the uninsured.

Deborah Bachrach, the lead author of the report, says the savings would be enough to cover the estimated $53 million annual cost of covering another 150,000 low-income Kansans.

It's “even possible that the state may be able to generate additional dollars--that is, dollars beyond those needed to cover the costs of the expansion," Bachrach says.

Even so, opposition to expansion remains strong. Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislative leaders say they don’t want to cover non-disabled adults until Kansans with disabilities are getting all the support services they need.

Read more on this story from KHI News Service.