Topeka ? Acting with unusual speed, legislators approved a bill Thursday intended to protect what state officials said was Kansas’ rightful share of the proceeds from the sale of a two-state hospital system.

The House passed the measure on a 114-5 vote about an hour after the Senate approved, 37-1. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was expected to sign it today.

The action followed Wednesday’s announcement by Missouri Atty. Gen. Jay Nixon of a legal settlement with nonprofit Health Midwest over the proposed $1.13 billion sale of its 13 hospitals and clinics to Tennessee-based HCA Inc.

The bill would create a separate Kansas foundation to hold assets from the sale, with an 18-member board appointed by the governor, attorney general and legislative leaders.

Most of the hospitals are on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, but there are two in suburban Johnson County, Kan., and one in Iola.

Nixon’s settlement would establish a joint foundation that would distribute about $700 million in proceeds to charities in the two states — with at least 10 percent, or $70 million, guaranteed to Kansas.

But Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline said the state’s share should be 15 percent to 25 percent of the proceeds, or between $105 million and $175 million.

“The attorney general of Missouri has said through his actions that he has the right to spend your money,” Kline told legislators Thursday. “This money is in trust with the people of the state of Kansas.”

But Sen. David Adkins, who cast the only vote against the bill in his chamber, said legislators were moving too quickly and hadn’t considered the implications of what they were doing.

“I don’t believe this bill is worthy of our support, even with a gun to our head,” said Adkins, R-Leawood, who lost last year’s GOP primary for attorney general to Kline.

Nixon, in a telephone interview Thursday, said the critical issue was meeting health care needs of people in the Kansas City area, regardless of whether they lived in Missouri or Kansas. He noted that under the settlement, six of the 25 directors of the Missouri foundation would be from Kansas.

“I am convinced that posturing about this is not what we need to do,” Nixon said from his office in Jefferson City, Mo. “I’ve done what’s right and what the law calls for.”

Kline said setting up the Kansas foundation would conclusively establish the state’s authority over Health Midwest assets.

But Nixon said Kansas lawmakers’ actions only proved his point that Kansas had no control over a Missouri nonprofit organization.