To the editor:

Once again I read, in Scott Rothschild’s article, that Medicaid provides services for low-income Kansas residents. This is actually less than half true and misleads people into thinking that all poor Kansans have some sort of safety net. Kansas provides Medicaid to only 44 percent of those adults who live in poverty, (families with children and those over 65). For the 152,000 other adults under 65, who are impoverished without children, there is no safety net.

If you’re a victim of the latest recession and have medical problems, your choices are few. You can ignore the problem until it disables you, kills you or goes away on its own. You can go to the emergency room, rack up a huge debt and then go bankrupt when they sue you, or you can try to find a doctor who will treat you even though they know they may not get paid. Here in Lawrence, we are fortunate to have some compassionate doctors and Health Care Access. Not all communities are so lucky.

Unfortunately there is only one political party that cares enough to stand up for the disadvantaged and try to provide an option other than “no health care at all.” It baffles me how the other party prides itself on their Christian values on one hand but, when it comes to helping the 35,810,200 people living in poverty in the U.S. (“the least among us”), their answer is “Let them suffer.” Compassionate conservatism must no longer exist.