TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly has announced plans to allocate additional funding to the state’s Medicaid-funded waiver program, a measure that will slightly shrink waiting lists for thousands of the state’s most vulnerable residents needing health care.
The proposal requires approval from the state Legislature, but Kelly, a Democrat, is embroiled in a broader fight with Republican-led leaders of both chambers of Congress who oppose Medicaid expansion.
“As we’ve heard from disability advocates and families, Kansans with disabilities need the essential services and care these waivers provide to live their lives well,” Gov. Kelly said in a statement Tuesday. “I am committed to reducing wait times for waiver services while we work to build a more comprehensive network of disability service providers.”
According to December data, there were 5,187 Kansans on the waiting list for intellectual and developmental disability services, and 2,361 Kansans on the list for physical disabilities.
Governor Kelly’s proposed 2025 budget amendments include more than $23 million for waivers, which would create 250 new slots in both programs, bringing a total of 500 Kansans off the list.
Kansans with intellectual or developmental disabilities are eligible for Medicaid-funded waivers that cover a variety of needed services, including in-home care, but the waiting period can be more than a decade, and a growing number of Kansans are being added to the delayed list.
Waiting lists have been an issue for more than 20 years, because wait times are tied to how much money lawmakers put into the programs: The waiting list has grown by thousands of people over the past eight years, but funding hasn’t kept up, said Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Kansas Disability Rights Center.
Nichols estimated that the Legislature has increased the state’s budget just once in the last eight years, allocating $3 million in 2020 to remove 150 people from the list.
Kelly also allocated $8.6 million in the fiscal year 2025 budget to increase employment wage rates for people with disabilities, as well as $7.4 million for this type of case management and $2 million for I/DD mobile crisis services.
“In addition to this investment, I will continue to urge the Legislature to expand Medicaid to improve recruitment and retention of the workforce needed to ensure more Kansans with disabilities have access to quality resources and services,” Kelly said.
Governor Kelly has been rallying around the state in the months leading up to the legislative session, urging the Legislature to consider some form of Medicaid expansion, which his office estimates would add health insurance coverage to about 15,000 disabled Kansans.
Expanding Medicaid would free up $700 million a year in federal funds and potentially save 59 rural hospitals at risk of closing, but key Republicans remain opposed.
Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins have called the move a way to expand the “welfare state.”
As the state debates expansion, Republican legislative leaders have begun to connect the issue to waiting lists, arguing the need to help “really vulnerable people” rather than putting “able-bodied” Kansans into government programs.
Critics say the statement is misleading because most of the estimated 150,000 Kansans who would benefit from Medicaid expansion are low-income working or chronically ill Kansans, and the Republican-controlled Legislature has done little to address disability services in recent years.
Hawkins said in a news release Tuesday that he was pleased that Kelly had acted to “find a middle ground.”
“Republicans have been pushing for months to eliminate the IDD waiver wait list because of the disastrously long wait times and record-high wait numbers under Laura Kelly’s administration,” Hawkins said. “… We are pleased that the Governor has finally adopted our compromise on this important issue, but we are disappointed that it was brought about by political pressure.”