To the editor:

The advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society recently released the results of a poll of 500 randomly selected registered Kansas voters, resulting in 72 percent favoring expanding Medicaid, including 59 percent of Republicans, 92 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents. Reagan Cussimanio, government relations director in Kansas for the society’s Cancer Action Network reports that “neither the governor’s office nor legislative leaders have an expressed interest in debating this issue during this year’s legislative session.”

Gov. Brownback and his supporters are not interested in having these results serve as a basis for an open discussion of the pros and cons of the Medicaid expansion. Why not? This is indicative of the Brownback & Co. strategy of cloaking issues in silence until they are suddenly voted on by the faithful and are promptly signed into law.

Unless Kansas residents get out and vote for different leadership in November — leadership that will bring us back to a state where people of differing opinions can coexist, we will have a state where only Gov. Brownback and his coterie are at home.