Independence, Kansas, is deep in Brownback country, suffers from governor’s policies

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When Thomas Frank asked, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” in his landmark 2004 book, he wanted to know why Kansans support politicians whose policies run counter to their self-interest.

How would the folks of Independence, Kansas, answer Frank’s query today? 

Independence is the county seat of Montgomery County, whose voters last November overwhelmingly sent Sam Brownback back to Topeka to continue his work as Kansas governor. Brownback picked up 63 percent of the vote there.

Voters knew, or should have known, that Brownback steadfastly refuses to entertain the notion of expanding Medicaid in the Sunflower State. As a result, Brownback and the majority of the Kansas Legislature has turned away $738 million in federal funds. That money could be used to expand the number of Kansans eligible for Medicaid.

This week, Independence residents learned that its hospital would close. The Mercy Hospital system announced that it could no longer support its operation in Independence, acknowledging that, among other factors for its decision, an expansion of Medicaid could have helped its bottom line. For Independence residents, their nearest hospitals are now at least 15 miles away.

For Brownback, the hospital’s closure seems to do nothing to have him reconsider his stance against Medicaid expansion. Brownback and his staff continue to think that Medicaid expansion represents a Big Government ploy, mainly because it’s a byproduct of President Barack Obama’s signature health-care policy, the Affordable Care Act.

Brownback also believes that Medicaid expansion is luxury from Uncle Sam offered to the unemployed Kansan. Just ask his aide Melika Willoughby, who this week wrote in an e-mail that making more Kansans eligible for Medicaid was “morally reprehensible.”

Doing so, she wrote, would represent another handout to “able-bodied adults without dependents, prioritizing those who choose not to work before intellectually, developmentally and physically disabled, the frail and elderly, and those struggling with mental health issues.”

Her e-mail reflects common thinking in Kansas: There’s a raft of lazy, jobless people living the high life, eschewing careers in favor of luxuries like EBT cards and taxpayer-funded health-care programs while the rest of us work and pay taxes to support their profligate lifestyles.

Nearly a quarter of Independence residents under 65 lack health insurance, according to the U.S. Census. That is double the rate of uninsured in the rest of the country.