To the editor:

Friday’s Journal-World brought another in a continuing years-long series of articles about the costs and consequences of incarceration and inadequate treatment of the mentally ill (“Douglas County leaders tour San Antonio mental health facilities”).  

Expansion of KanCare, the state’s Medicaid program, would help address this issue. KanCare expansion would provide health coverage to thousands of mentally ill Kansans, allowing them to receive the services and medications they need and possibly preventing their entanglement with the criminal justice system.

But the governor and Kansas Legislature refuse to seriously consider KanCare expansion. In the process they harm not only the mentally ill, but the communities where they live. Health care, like law enforcement, is delivered locally. It is here in Douglas County, and in other communities around the state, where the costs and consequences of the lack of health insurance are felt and paid for.

Douglas County leaders are wise to consider options for humanely and effectively serving the mentally ill. Their efforts would be helped immeasurably if state leaders showed the same wisdom and compassion and accepted federal funding to expand KanCare.