an archbishop who "interfered" with the Senate committee so that the bill never left the committee.

an archbishop who "interfered" with the Senate committee so that the bill never left the committee.

This is a state senate leader blaming the Catholic Church for his position of defeating Medicaid in Kansas.

He specifically mentions an archbishop who "interfered" with the Senate committee so that the bill never left the committ

This is a state senate leader blaming the Catholic Church for his position of defeating Medicaid in Kansas.

He specifically mentions an archbishop who "interfered" with the Senate committee so that the bill never left the committee. The Archibishop allegedly said that until the abortion was outlawed that medicaid had to stopped for the needy.

Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said Denning was wrong to blame Naumann. But Weber also said the church wanted the inclusion of the amendment as a provision of its support for Medicaid expansion.

“Senator Denning’s statement that the Archbishop Naumann was single-handedly responsible for torpedoing Medicaid Expansion is simply not accurate,” Weber said. “The public record is clear that the Kansas Catholic Conference, in January at the beginning of the 2020 legislative session, testified in support of Medicaid expansion with the provisos that the legislation included conscious protections for health care workers and the people of Kansas were provided the opportunity to vote on the Value Them Both amendment.”

Republicans gained a supermajority advantage in both the House and Senate in the November 2020 elections. The Legislature approved the constitutional amendment ballot question in 2021, with a provision to place it before voters in the August 2022 primary election. Kansans rejected the amendment by an 18-point margin.

Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers have been unsuccessful in attempts to insert Medicaid expansion proposals into various bills.

April Holman, executive director of the Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, said the failure to expand Medicaid has had serious consequences over the years.

“We have seen poll after poll showing that Kansans overwhelmingly think that we should expand, and yet when the issue gets to the Statehouse, there is an absolute brick wall that we run into,” Holman said. “We can’t get a hearing. We can’t get bills that are moved out of committee. We can’t get a clean vote on expansion. And it seems very disconnected from the will of the people and very disconnected from the intention of the democratic process.”

Holman said Denning had the opportunity to expand Medicaid and didn’t take it.

“I think that it’s really ironic, because he had the opportunity to be the hero on this issue,” Holman said. “And if he had worked the bill or allowed it to be worked or voted on in 2019, we would have so many people across the state of Kansas who would be healthier today as a result.”

During the Oral History Project interview, Denning said he wasn’t optimistic about the future of Medicaid expansion absent a significant shakeup to the Legislature.

“All that work was all down the drain,” Denning said. “It may never come back unless the Legislature changes like it did in 2016. But I don’t think anybody would take the effort that I did to build Senate Bill 252. If it ever does happen, it won’t be robust like that. It was very comprehensive. It still stings a little bit.”

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