Topeka ? Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Friday promised a major initiative to increase the availability of health insurance and a proposal to link the award of state contracts to companies that offer workers’ benefits.

In comments to reporters later, Sebelius also said she has joined six other governors in rejecting the U.S. government’s effort to get states to sign on to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

“We have recently withdrawn from CAFTA because we feel the leverage we need needs to stay in the state,” Sebelius said.

In her speech to the Kansas AFL-CIO, Sebelius, a Democrat, urged labor to support candidates seeking positions from the Statehouse to the White House who will work on ways to provide health coverage.

Of the nation’s 44 million uninsured, she said, “That’s just flat wrong.”

Sebelius said she would propose a system to help employers provide insurance for low-wage workers through an insurance pool, and reduce administrative expenses in the health-care system.

One of every $4 spent on health pays for administration, she said, which amounts to nearly $3 billion of $12 billion annually in Kansas.

As an example of excess administrative expenses, Sebelius noted she has one card that allows her to withdraw money from banks across the country. But she needs six cards to access health coverage in Topeka.

Nikki King, executive director of Health Care Access Clinic in Lawrence, said Sebelius’ health care initiative was “excellent news.”

There are an estimated 9,300 uninsured people in Douglas County, and the Lawrence group tries to provide health services to nearly 1,000 low-income people who have no coverage.

“Following our founding members’ philosophy, we would love to be put out of business,” King said. “No one imagined when we began in 1988 that we would still be needed today, and certainly not to this extent.”

Sebelius, the state’s former insurance commissioner, said one way to ensure workers have health insurance and other benefits was for the state to consider those issues when awarding contracts.

When companies don’t provide insurance or other benefits, she said, costs for health care usually fall back on taxpayers and private insurance policyholders.

“We want to be sensitive to not only the bottom line, but what is not on the bottom line,” she said, adding that her administration soon would establish new bidding rules to take into account the benefits offered by companies seeking state business.

Sebelius criticized “outsourcing” of jobs overseas, and noted the state has told the U.S. Trade Representative office it doesn’t want to participate in the purchasing rules of the CAFTA proposal between the U.S. and five Central American countries. The agreement is now before Congress.

Free-trade agreements have been coming under increasing criticism by governors that claim the agreements restrict state governments by putting strict rules on government regulation and purchasing policies.

Chris Slevin, deputy director of Public Citizen’s global trade watch, said seven states, including Kansas, have recently jumped off CAFTA.

He said states were realizing the procurement, or purchasing, rules in the agreements could hurt them. He noted Republican governors have made the same decision as Sebelius.

“It’s not just a partisan thing,” he said.