The third and final legislative coffee hosted by the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce will be Saturday, April 1st at 9:00 am.

The coffee will feature State Senators Jeff Longbine and Tom Hawk, as well as State Representatives Lonnie Clark and Dave Baker.

Fresh off the Medicaid expansion veto by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, this will be an opportunity for community members to express their concerns to local legislators.

Representative Dave Baker, 68th District, said that discussion toward an override of the Governor’s veto has been tabled until Monday – a move prompted in part by the absence of two members of the House on the day the veto was announced.

“Everyone will go home this weekend, and I’m sure we’ll be getting lots of input from constituents on how they feel about Medicaid Expansion,” said Baker. “I’m for overriding the Governor’s veto.”

Baker, a member of the Children and Seniors Committee, said that he hasn’t had anyone contact him “that supports the Governor’s position.”

“It’s a sad situation,” said Baker. “[They] went from 124 people to process those applications on KanCare all the way down to 18, and that just created a tremendous backlog; and our forms that we use for helping people navigate the Medicaid system – we use to have a 7 page form like the other states around us, now it’s 17 pages – so we’ve made everything just about as difficult as we possibly can.”

Baker said that as a result of the issues with KanCare and budget cuts due to financial woes in the State it has created hardships across many sectors.

“We need to get a resolution, and Medicaid expansion is definitely part of the answer.”

The Kansas House 68th District includes the counties of Chase, Morris, Dickinson and part of Geary County that includes Junction City.

*feature image courtesy @davebaker4kansas Facebook