Kansas lags behind on insurance equality, report says

Despite progress in the state due to the Affordable Care Act, an analysis shows gaps among minority populations are still large

Insurance News

By Lyle Adriano

A reported prepared by the Kansas Health Institute revealed that Kansas still has a way to go before it can achieve insurance equality. This is despite a recent report published by nonprofit Center for Global Policy Solutions that suggested that the ACA has helped reduce racial and ethnic inequalities in health insurance coverage.

Kansas Health Institute’s study found that 17.4% of black Kansans lacked insurance in 2014, compared to 7.6% of white Kansans without coverage. The report highlights that not only is Kansas’ disparity higher compared to other states, the state’s proportion is much higher than the national average of 13.6% of black Americans that are uninsured in 2014.

The same report revealed that a staggering 24.2% of Hispanics in Kansas were uninsured—about three times more than the proportion of uninsured white Kansans.

While the ACA allowed for the expansion of Medicaid to adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, the expansion did not fall through in Kansas.

Gov. Sam Brownback, along with other Republican lawmakers who shared his sentiments, impeded efforts to allow more individuals to be eligible for KanCare—the state’s privatized Medicaid program. Brownback and his peers argued that the KanCare program does not extend coverage to non-disabled, childless adults—no matter how poor they are—and it would better serve disabled individuals stuck in waiting lists for their treatments.

Individuals with disabilities actually get listed for disability support services, not medical care.

Teresa Lovelady, head of Wichita-based HealthCore Clinic, believes that the obstruction of Medicaid’s expansion in Kansas is the main reason why a significant racial disparity in the state’s insurance coverage exists.

“[Those without insurance coverage,] their income was too low to meet the federal threshold, but they were too rich to qualify for Medicaid in the state of Kansas,” she said, reasoning that it was due to the state’s inability to expand Medicaid.
 

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