By
timothy.carpenter@cjonline.com
A survey of Kansans sponsored by two organizations supportive of Medicaid expansion indicated two-thirds of respondents disagreed with Gov. Sam Brownback’s decision to veto a bill extending health coverage to low-income adults.
The American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network released Monday results of a statewide poll conducted in late April on prospects of providing coverage to 180,000 Kansans.
Momentum in the 2017 Legislature to work on Medicaid expansion bills has been blunted by Brownback’s veto and more recent action in the U.S. House to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Hilary Gee, spokeswoman for Cancer Action Network, said 64 percent of voters disagreed with Brownback’s veto. Three-fourths of Kansans taking part in the poll, including 66 percent of Republicans, indicated they were supportive of broadening Medicaid eligibility.
“The Legislature still has time to do the right thing by bringing our tax dollars back to provide thousands of hardworking, low-income Kansans access to comprehensive health care coverage. Access to care is essential to preventing, detecting and surviving cancer,” Gee said.
Brownback defended the veto because Medicaid expansion wouldn’t “serve the truly vulnerable” and would burden the state budget with “unrestrainable entitlement costs.”
GS Strategy Group conducted the survey of 500 likely voters April 22-27. Thirty-nine percent of respondents identified themselves as conservative, 34 percent as moderate and 23 percent as liberal. The poll’s overall margin of error was 4.3 percent.