Letter: Sinking state

To the editor:

The governor is the admiral of the Titanic. He has decided, along with the Republican leadership, that the wealthy will float free in the lifeboats while the poor go down with the ship.

Gov. Brownback and the Legislature passed on expanding the Medicaid program, making sure the poor would stay locked out until they decide otherwise. Kansas lawmakers included a condition in the budget requiring a legislative vote to expand the Medicaid program.

The Medicaid expansion would have covered an estimated 150,000 more Kansans. The expansion would have allowed about $800 million in federal funding for the state over the next three years.

Kansas hospitals and association groups pushed for expanding the Medicaid program.  Hospitals and advocacy groups say the Medicaid expansion would give more people access to a payment system, reducing the amount of care for which providers aren’t compensated.

The governor’s refusal represents petty, partisan politics revealing an incredible callousness regarding the poor among us. 

Was the governor sleeping in Sunday School when he was a child?

Brownback’s denial is difficult to comprehend, indeed immoral, if one subscribes to common ideals of justice in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and traditions of other major religions of the world.  

What kind of a political leader is a governor who turns his back on the poor, denying them access to health care while rewarding so generously the wealthy, who are assured of health care, by reducing or eliminating their taxes? What kind of a state is Kansas? What kind of society are we?