Trump cuts thump statewide funnel to Obamacare

New Trump2-era funding cuts to the massive support bureaucracy bolstering the federal healthcare plan known as Obamacare, pegged by critics with its role in raising private-pay health insurance premiums by 143 percent since its inception in 2013, have placed eastern Kansas’ most prolific grant-funded non-profit in peril.

Thrive Allen County received a $12.9 million grant award last August from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to fund a five-year “Navigator” program statewide in Kansas, designed to help funnel Kansans across the state onto the Affordable Care Act health insurance program. Thrive CEO Lisse Regehr told The Iola Register the organization got word February 14 the grant would be reduced by 90 percent beginning in 2026. The organization had been set to receive some $2 million from the $97 million set aside by the Biden Administration for FY2026.

Regehr declined to tell the newspaper how many of its 10 full time employees – some referred to as “Navigators” within the program as well as other staff – could be affected or laid off due to the cuts.

“It was, at the moment, Thrive’s most stable and longest-term funding, which created stability,” Regehr told the Register. “It allowed us, for the first time ever, to look and plan five years down the road.”

The Navigator grant cut, like a previous USDA announcement that affected Thrive, has forced the employment converation with staff, Regehr told the newspaper.

“I’ve been very honest and upfront with our team members,” Regehr told the Register “I’ve told them, if anyone feels uncertain, if they can’t sleep at night because they don’t know what their job is going to look like tomorrow, I encourage them to look for a job.”

Thrive Allen County was formerly headed by Kansas Lieutenant Governor and Secretary or Commerce David Toland, who spent 8 years in Washington, D.C., working for the D.C. Office of Planning and Economic Development and later a private real estate company before returning to his native Iola to head the local economic development agency. Toland leveraged his expertise in seizing available public grant funds to grow Thrive. “Today, the organization is the largest coalition of its type in Kansas with 10 full-time staff positions, an annual operating budget of nearly $1 million, and owns a 15,000 square foot building that serves as its headquarters,” the organization’s website says.

THRIVE ALLEN COUNTY IRS 990 FILING

Since 2013 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says Obamacare has reduced the number of uninsured Americans by 10 percent, but Obamacare has been roundly criticized for its impact on health insurance premiums across the broader industry since it went into effect in 2012. While a record 171,000 Kansas had enrolled in the federal marketplace by last year, a Heritage Foundation study found that per capita monthly premiums in Kansas increased by 62% from 2013 to 2016. Over the first 5 years of Obamacare, 67% fewer insurers offered exchange coverage in Kansas, and rate increases for Blue Cross and Blue Shield Kansas, Medica and Ambetter companies have continued to increase.

And the broader affect registered another indictment against the plan. Since Obamacare’s inception, Americans are less healthy on average than they were before. Life expectancy for Americans was lower in 2019 than it was in 2013.

A Report to the US House committee on ways and means said the average price paid for health insurance (“premiums”) jumped by 143 percent between 2013 and 2019. At the same time premiums more than doubled in the individual market, deductibles for ACA-compliant coverage also increased by an average of 35% — over $1,700 for individuals and $3,600 for families. Over 10 years, spending on health care per person increased by 28.7 percent.

The report also noted $100 billion per year in improper federal Medicaid payments tied to the ACA. Citing an analysis published by the Mercatus Center’s Brian Blase and University of Kentucky economist Aaron Yelowitz, the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services found that “systemic errors include neglecting to obtain proper documentation; failing to properly verify income eligibility; misclassifying individuals, including into the newly eligible category; and failing to properly verify citizenship.” 

THE NATIONAL REVIEW: “Reality Check: The Increasing Cost of Papering Over Obamacare’s Problems.”)

Regehr told the Iola newspaper Thrive Navigators enrolled 1,445 uninsured and logged an additional 800 into Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The organization provided health insurance and literacy services for another 3,700 clients and referred another 500 to other health insurance providers, the newspaper said. Regehr said the organization would continue to press for funding the Navigator mission.

“We are still working very diligently to try and ensure Kansas still gets some of this funding,” she told the Register. “Thrive’s mission, one of the things we’ve worked on at Thrive, is if there are dollars that can go anywhere, we want them here in our community. That creates better health outcomes and better economic outcomes for our community. We’re gonna continue to advocate for this program.”