State Sen. David Haley, D-4th Dist., played an important role in the Kansas Senate Feb. 9 concerning a floor discussion on Medicaid expansion.
Sen. Haley said that the chairwoman of the Public Health and Welfare Committee, Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook of Shawnee, had not yet held a hearing on Medicaid expansion in her committee, and she added an amendment on Medicaid expansion to an unrelated bill on the Senate floor. Observers believed her intent was to defeat the issue before a hearing could be held, showing that there was not support for Medicaid expansion.
The amendment was to a bill that required Medicaid recipients to use “step therapy.” If it is enacted, that bill would require Medicaid recipients to try cheaper drugs first in treating medical conditions, before moving to more expensive treatments.
“I called them on the rules and they had to admit this amendment did not fit,” Sen. Haley said. The Senate Rules Committee agreed that the amendment did not fit. The Senate then voted 22-15 that the amendment was not germane.
In a statement in the Senate Journal explaining his vote, Sen. Haley said: “I vote ‘Aye’ to sustain the Rules Committee (and reject the amendment as not germane to the underlying bill): Whatever our opinion(s) on any issue might be, we, the Kansas Senate, should be a chamber of guidelines and of rules…and of laws. Mr. Chair, we cannot just bend rules or decorum as we go along in debate and to do so by not affirming our own established laws would descend this chamber into metered chaos, ridicule and disrespect.”