Kansas Medicaid Expansion: Read the fine print

You don’t have to go around the block too many times to figure out when some company says it’s announcing a “rate adjustment” that you – the customer – are going to be paying more. It may be buried in the fine print, but it’s there.

The same goes for a term Governor Laura Kelly and some Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) in the Kansas Legislature are hoping you’ll warm up to next year called “Medicaid Expansion.” They’re going to be selling it to you and to your state senators and representatives really hard come the new session of the legislature in January, and hoping you don’t read the fine print.

If you’ve read up on the “expansion” you probably already have it pegged. If you’re in favor of it, you’re probably also in favor of Bernie Sanders’ free college for everyone and free health care for illegal immigrants and all kinds of other free stuff that “somebody else” will pay for.

If you’re against it, you probably think adding 130,000 able-bodied people who presently make too much money to qualify to the list of people who get free health benefits seems unwarranted, and you’ve probably figured out the $50 million it’s going to cost the state in the first year is going to come at least to some extent out of your pocket.

What you probably have not seen in that small print is a reminder of what Governor Kelly has already taken from you if you’re a worker or a small business person, or if you own a corporation that pays taxes in Kansas.

For starters, Governor Kelly decided she and state government were entitled to a nice tax refund you were supposed to get when President Trump cut your federal income tax in 2018. That means $190 million of our hard-earned dollars should have been refunded to us from the state which we could have used to buy a car or remodel our kitchen or pay tuition or go to McDonalds. But, Governor Kelly opted to keep it.

Then Kelly approved a 9 percent hike in state spending for 2019, and vetoed a bill that would have reduced our taxes even though the state is churning in millions of dollars in revenues above budget estimates – courtesy of the largest tax increase in state history legislators approved in 2017. Then to lower the heat from the Kansas Supreme Court, Kelly and legislators increased school spending $500 million in 2018 and added another $90 million in icing for the educational cake last spring.

So if you’re concerned about another $50 million in state spending to add able-bodied people to Medicaid, who can blame you?

Another issue in the small print of Medicaid Expansion is for the deserving people already on it. Will the new money from the federal government and that $50 million from Kansas be enough to cover 130,000 new people as well as those who already qualify? Other states that expanded Medicaid found an extra 50 to 100 percent more new enrollees than their initial estimates. That means Kansas could be adding 260,000 to 300,000 new recipients at a cost of a billion dollars per year, and $100 million in extra cost to Kansas tax payers.     

Maybe “someone else” will pay those costs so we can have it all for free? Then again, maybe not.

Kelly and those legislators need to focus on job growth and strengthening the state’s economy so Kansas workers can provide for themselves and their families, instead of adding new people to the public dole. Kansans have paid enough extra tax bills lately. That’s a message no fine print can hide.

– Dane Hicks is the publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan. 

Feminists abandon women athletes to back transgender trophy thieves

Forget burning your bras, marching for equal pay and smashing the glass ceiling – the next feminist revolution will be defined in the fight over boys identifying as girls stealing awards and accolades from women in sports.


It’s going to fracture the modern feminist movement and can be wrapped up in one declaration: it has to be Trump’s fault.

This time it’s an implosion that would confound even someone who identifies as Gloria Steinem. In the debate over transgenders and athletics, traditional feminism is going to have choose between women, whom it has tried for decades to convince they should rise up and take what they’re due from us “Y” chromosome Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals themselves who have decided they’re entitled to women’s sports championships because they identify as girls.

So far in that argument, feminism is siding with the boys. Well, sort of...

The issue revolves around high school and college female athletes who’ve worked for years to acquire their best athletic marks, primarily in track and field, worthy of scholarship hopes and collegiate championships – only to be bested by the recent introduction of male athletes into their sports who identify as females and are allowed to compete against women according to laws in 19 states. The result has been, as one can imagine, lopsided.

In a Connecticut case, two males now hold 15 women’s high school state track championship titles that were once held by girls. Some girls have been bumped out of regional finishes that would have sent them on their way to compete for state titles and the attention from collegiate scouts which comes with that.

In some cases college scholarships are at stake. In that sense, competition from biological males competing against them may in some instances be stopping women from getting an education. But women’s rights groups and the ACLU in Connecticut and elsewhere have sided with the boys, calling the girls’ concerns “unfounded fears” in one response in The Nutmeg State.

The inarguable unfairness of the issue transcends the fickleness of modern social justice warriors who've so nobly embraced LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) communities because, in the world of science, facts know no social objective. Apples are always apples, oranges are always oranges, and only vaginas are vaginas.

Consider a 1993 study by the National Institutes of Health on strength and muscle characteristic comparisons between men and women. Research showed women on average possessed only 52 percent of men’s upper body strength, and only 66 percent of a man’s strength in the lower body. The difference was generally due to men having larger muscle fibers and higher proportion of lean tissue in the upper body. This is historically why men, in general, look like men and women, in general, look like women – a definition which used to actually matter in determining which was which.

Simply put, even men who’ve had their genitals removed and undergone hormone therapy to sound and appear more female can’t rewrite the programming in their muscle tissue, the density of their bones and the better leverage allowed by longer bones and better muscle connections. Hence, the world pole vault record for women is just over 16 feet; the record for men just over 20 feet – at least for now.

But the issue confronting the girls in the Connecticut lawsuit and in the other 18 states that allow this ludicrousy has to do more with political correctness on steroids than physical performances.

Those women who have earned their stripes and their right to compete through physical and mental work most of us can't even fathom have been abandoned by modern feminists who now pursue progressive society’s higher social justice goals: the canonizing and mainstreaming of sexual oddity.

 In this bizarro reality, everybody gets a trophy except the girls who’ve earned them. Those girls may eventually choose to throw their support behind people and organizations that have their interests more at heart. ###
–Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan.

Looking for video editor & advertising sales person

Video Editor – Garnett Publishing, Inc., is in search of a digital video nerd who can edit raw footage and collaborate on projects within our newly launched video production department. You'll make suggestions and render technical assistance on short advertising videos for our clients destined for their social media, websites, etc. Pay is on project (contract) basis. You don't need to have worked in this field before, but you do need to know your way around video editing. Send letter of introduction outlining your interest and experience to publisher Dane Hicks at dhicks@garnett-ks.com.

Advertising/Media Sales – Garnett Publishing, Inc., publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett and The Trading Post in Lawrence, is looking for a part-time (20-30 hrs/week) salesperson to work with clients in their purchases of advertising, video, social media and other media products we offer. Flexible morning & afternoon hours, paid vacations and holidays. Good hourly wage plus bonuses on special projects. All training provided. Applicants should have polished, professional demeanor and computer/smartphone functionality. To apply or for more information send resume and short intro letter to publisher Dane Hicks at dhicks@garnett-ks.com