The chairman of the Senate health committee on Monday promised to block Medicaid expansion until the House passes the constitutional amendment on abortion.
Republican Sen. Gene Suellentrop said his committee will not pass a Medicaid expansion bill until the amendment passes, a position he said was shared by the majority of the Republican caucus in the Senate.
It was the first indication of how the committee would handle the legislation after Suellentrop said last week on the Senate floor that the bill was still active.
Suellentrop said his committee worked on the bill last week as an indication it was willing to make progress on the legislation as it awaits the House to pass the abortion amendment.
He also took aim at Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning for negotiating a Medicaid expansion compromise with Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
“I reject the premise that one legislator has the right to negotiate with the governor on behalf of the entire Senate and any improvements to that plan by the Senate health committee are somehow out of line,” Suellentrop said in a letter he read into the record Monday morning.
Denning said he completed the work he was charged to do by Senate Republicans last year.
“I was tasked by the Republican caucus to develop a healthcare bill, including Medicaid expansion, that would be ready for debate on the Senate floor early in 2020. That was done,” Denning said in a letter to Suellentrop.
Denning reminded Suellentrop that the Senate bill had 22 sponsors, including 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats.
Medicaid expansion has been threatened since the Kansas House failed to pass a constitutional amendment reversing a state Supreme Court decision that found the right to an abortion is protected in the state constitution.
Senate President Susan Wagle, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, has vowed not to run the Medicaid expansion bill on the Senate floor until the House approves the amendment.
Meanwhile, the expansion bill is now blocked in committee.
Last week, the health committee added several amendments to the bill that critics said would effectively kill the legislation.
The committee added work, education or volunteer requirements for anyone enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program.
The panel also added an amendment allowing Medicaid providers to opt out of medical services they object to on religious grounds, such as providing birth control or abortion.
Another amendment would block Medicaid expansion from being implemented until Kansas voters approve a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court’s abortion decision.
Similarly, the same amendment would stop Medicaid expansion from being implemented until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the individual coverage mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
Denning said the Senate version of Medicaid expansion bill wasn’t much of an option after the amendments were added.
In his letter to Suellentrop, Denning said the health committee should approve the bill that passed out of the House last year and was later bottled up in committee.
The House bill is much less expansive than the version Denning and the governor negotiated, primarily focusing on expanding Medicaid.
It does not include, among other things, a provision for reducing insurance prices on the individual exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.
“I fear that due to political maneuvers and games by conservatives in the House, a Senate bill will serve of little value” after the constitutional amendment passes the House, Denning said in his letter.
The majority leader said the Senate Select Committee on Healthcare Access did not recommend a work requirement similar to the one added to the bill last week.
But Suellentrop pointed to recommendations from another interim committee that recommended a work requirement and a provision for conscientious objectors.
Suellentrop continued to press the argument that expanding Medicaid would potentially lead to taxpayer-funded abortions if the constitutional amendment is not passed.
Abortion rights opponents say that women enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program might become pregnant and seek an abortion.
And while state law bars taxpayer-funded abortions, they say that the restriction could be struck down in the aftermath of the state Supreme Court decision.
April Holman, executive director of Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, expressed frustration about the deadlock on Medicaid expansion.
“There’s no legitimate policy connection between Medicaid expansion and the constitutional amendment on abortion,” Holman said.
“It’s deeply troubling that lawmakers are using the health care of tens of thousands Kansans as a bargaining chip.”
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley took exception to comments that Suellentrop made suggesting that the amendments improved the bill.
Hensley asked Suellentrop to rename the bill Senate Substitute for SB 252 in order to remove the names of the 22 sponsors, including his own.
“I suspect most of the co-sponsors do not want their name associated with a Medicaid expansion bill with amendments they oppose,” Hensley said.
Hensley said he thinks it’s a matter of time before senators will mount an attempt to pull the bill out of committee.
However, Hensley said he thinks some Republican senators would like to see one more vote on the abortion amendment in the House before there will be an effort to pull Medicaid expansion out of committee.
“At the end of the day,” Hensley said, “I think the votes will be there.”
