U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-3rd Dist., left, and Republican Amanda Adkins are seeking the 3rd District Congressional seat. (Candidate photos)
by Aviva Okeson-Haberman, Kansas News Service
Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids and former Cerner executive Amanda Adkins, a Republican, have sharp differences in their vision for how best to represent Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District.
If you live in Johnson, Wyandotte or part of Miami County, follow this link to find out where Davids and Adkins stand on major issues facing the United States and Kansas.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
Barbara Bollier, left, and Roger Marshall , right are running for the U.S. Senate. (Candidate photos)
Republican Roger Marshall and Democrat Barbara Bollier have one thing they agree on: getting rid of surprise medical bills.
by Jim McLean, Kansas News Service
Topeka, Kansas — The two doctors running for the U.S. Senate in Kansas are offering very different prescriptions for increasing access to affordable health care during the coronavirus pandemic.
Both Republican Roger Marshall and Democrat Barbara Bollier want to make big changes to the nation’s health care system but aren’t on the same page about whether the U.S. should expand government programs that already cover roughly 35% of Americans or rely more on competition in the private sector.
The outcome of the debate, which is playing out in congressional races across the country, will affect millions of Americans — and hundreds of thousands of Kansans — especially those with pre-existing health conditions.
We’ve broken down the candidates’ positions on the behemoth that is “health care” and how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic into four sections.
The Affordable Care Act
Marshall, a two-term congressman from western Kansas, is leading the GOP’s persistent effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010.
“Both parties want to repeal the ACA,” the retired obstetrician from Great Bend said in an interview.
“The Democrat Party wants to replace it with government-controlled health care. I want to replace it with more patient-controlled health care.”
Marshall also believes that less regulation and more transparency about health care costs would increase competition and result in more choices for consumers. In other words, he said: “allowing patients to be consumers again.”
Bollier, a former Republican and retired anesthesiologist from Mission Hills, said conversations with voters have convinced her that “access to affordable health care is the No. 1 issue … especially now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic.”
And contrary to what Marshall claims, Bollier said Democrats want to strengthen the ACA, not repeal it.
She supports Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s proposal to increase government subsidies to make coverage more affordable. She also supports his plan to create a government-run “public option” to compete with the private plans sold on the health care exchange. Something, she said, that would help middle-income Kansans who don’t qualify for subsidies.
“The (coverage) on the exchange isn’t affordable for everyone, so we need to go beyond that,” she said.
When asked how much an expansion would cost, Bollier said she would have to check. But the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates extending health coverage to about half or a little more of the approximately 30 million people who lack it would cost about $2 trillion over 10 years.
Marshall said that if Bollier is elected, she’d fall in line with liberal Democratic leaders who want to expand to all Americans Medicare, the government health program for people 65 and older.
“I couldn’t have been any more clear from Day One saying I didn’t support Medicare For All,” said Bollier, who calls the proposal “unworkable” and would force people to give up private coverage.
Pre-existing conditions
Republicans in Washington have talked for years about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Marshall even helped write unsuccessful legislation that would have replaced the health care law, serving as the chair of a Republican task force.
And repeal isn’t the only threat: The U.S. Supreme Court could strike down the law in 2021, as just days after the Nov. 3 election, it will hear a lawsuit led by Republican state attorneys general, including Kansas’ Derek Schmidt.
Critics say the Republicans’ bill, which passed the House in 2017 but died in the Senate, would have resulted in fragmented coverage and excluded people with pre-existing health conditions.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates more than 50 million non-elderly adults in the U.S. have conditions that could make them uninsurable if the health care law is repealed, ranging from relatively mild (seasonal allergies and skin disorders) to more serious (diabetes, heart disease and cancer).
But the fear that Republicans’ replacement plan would put coverage for an estimated 465,000 Kansans at risk are overblown, Marshall said.
“My biggest priority is to make sure we take care of pre-existing conditions,” he said. “It’s a sword I’ll die on.”
Marshall is also advocating the re-establishment of “high-risk pools,” which are state-run programs that provide last-resort coverage for people who either can’t get it from their employer or buy an individual policy in the private market.
Marshall believes that using high-risk pools to cover people with pre-existing conditions would lower the cost of insurance for everyone else.
Karen Pollitz with the Kaiser Family Foundation said the U.S. has tried it before and it didn’t work because “almost nobody” who needed a high-risk plan could afford one. She said only 1,500 people were in Kansas’ high-risk pool when it shut down in 2010.
The Republican replacement bill included money to help states form high-risk pools and provide subsidies to make the coverage more affordable. However, the $100 billion in funding was well short of what was needed to hold down the cost of coverage, Pollitz said.
“When you create a program that covers people only when they’re sick,” she said, “you better be prepared to put a couple of trillion dollars behind it.”
Other insurance issues
Both Marshall and Bollier say they favor legislation to address “surprise” bills from medical providers, which are unexpected costs that arise when a provider outside of an approved network assists with treatment.
A bipartisan bill that Marshall co-sponsored in 2019 remains buried in a U.S. House committee. Bollier’s effort to address the issue at the state level suffered a similar fate; she said Republican leaders instructed a committee chairman “not to run the bill.”
Bollier and Marshall differ on another proposal aimed at lowering health care costs. Currently, the federal agency that runs Medicare isn’t allowed to bargain with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for the approximately 44 million people — including 545,000 Kansans — enrolled in the program.
Marshall voted against legislation to permit the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to negotiate prices, a move Bollier criticized.
The coronavirus
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the health care debate and triggered a new fight over public health.
During a September debate between the Senate candidates, Marshall said Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly — with Bollier’s support — went too far in trying to stop the spread of the coronavirus by ordering people to stay home and shuttering schools and non-essential businesses.
“Maybe this works in New York and California,” Marshall said, “but it’s not going to fly in Kansas.”
Bollier criticized Marshall for not taking the virus seriously enough and for attempting to minimize COVID-19 death totals to justify the Trump administration’s uneven response to the pandemic.
“It’s been so disappointing to see a doctor (Marshall) more concerned with his political health than the actual health of the people of Kansas,” Bollier said.
Bollier said Marshall, like President Donald Trump, has “put people at risk” by not wearing a mask as he campaigns. The president came down with the coronavirus in early October, just after the first debate; many White House staff members were infected as well.
Marshall now generally wears a mask, but at events throughout the summer he often didn’t.
“If I walk into rural Kansas with a mask on, people look at me like I’ve got three eyes or something,” Marshall told The Associated Press after a Kansas City-area campaign stop in August.
Marshall has volunteered at clinics and hospitals to help treat COVID-19 patients. Responding to Bollier during the September debate, he said he “respects the virus” but doesn’t believe it should control our lives — particularly now that it can be more effectively treated than early in the pandemic.
“I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “We’re winning the war against this invisible enemy.”
In the two weeks following that Sept. 19 debate, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Kansas increased by 20 percent, and the number of cases rose by 11 percent.
Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on the health and well-being of Kansans, their communities and civic life. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks or email jim (at) kcur (dot) org. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
Candidates for U.S. Senate in Kansas include Democrat Barbara Bollier, left, and Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, right. (Candidate photos)
Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall calls his Democratic foe, state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a “radical.” She believes Marshall is a “yes man” for the president. Here’s where they stand on taxes, trade and immigration.
by Jim McLean, Kansas News Service
Topeka, Kansas — It’s little surprise that the candidates for Kansas’ open U.S. Senate seat sharply disagree on taxes, trade, immigration and climate change. What’s unclear is who voters will most agree with in November: Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall or Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier.
Bollier, a retired doctor, believes Marshall’s down-the-line support of President Donald Trump has created an opportunity for her to ride anti-Trump sentiment in the state’s population centers to an upset.
But Marshall is betting on his support of Trump’s tax cuts, trade tactics and hard-line position on immigration to carry the day in a state where the president remains relatively popular with voters. Summing up his core message at a primary debate, Marshall declared, “I’m running to keep standing by this president and to stop the left’s socialist agenda” — including “radical” immigration and environmental policies.
Bollier, however, said those tax cuts benefited the wealthy over middle-class Kansans and that the president’s trade policies were “reckless” and punished Kansas farmers. Essentially, Bollier said in the first debate of the general election, Marshall is voting “the way he is told (by party leaders) rather than what’s best for Kansas.”
“We need political leaders in Washington who will stop the political bickering, stop attacking one another and just get things done,” said Bollier, a moderate former Republican who switched parties in 2018.
Tax cuts
Marshall, a two-term congressman from western Kansas and retired obstetrician from Great Bend, claims the federal tax cuts enacted in 2017 spurred the pre-COVID-19 U.S. economy to record heights and substantially lowered taxes for middle-income Kansans.
“It was the greatest economy of my lifetime,” Marshall said in a recent interview with the Kansas News Service. “The average Kansas family was keeping $2,000 more of their hard-earned money.”
A pro-Marshall campaign ad produced by One Nation, a political action committee that doesn’t have to disclose its donors and is connected to Republican political operative Karl Rove, praised Marshall for supporting tax cuts that it said “will increase average household income by $4,000.”
Both that claim and Marshall’s are misleading, according to Frank Sammartino, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
“There was an increase in people’s after-tax income,” Sammartino said, “but it wasn’t anything like $4,000 across the board.”
The figure used in the ad comes from projections Trump’s Council of Economic advisers formulated to boost support for the legislation as Congress was debating it. A Tax Policy Center analysis shows that the cuts reduced federal taxes for Kansas families earning between $50,000 and $75,000 by an average of $930, and 60% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 20% of Kansans.
Other provisions in the tax bill, Marshall said, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act mandate that required Americans to purchase health insurance, added to the savings.
But Bollier pushed back, pointing to the uneven distribution of benefits and the fact that the tax cuts “ballooned” the federal budget deficit,
“We need a tax system that is fair to all,” she said.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is proposing to repeal the tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 a year. Bollier doesn’t support “a full repeal of the Trump tax plan,” spokesperson Alexandra De Luca said. Instead, she favors making the middle-class tax cuts permanent and closing “loopholes for corporations and the wealthy that are driving up our national debt.”
Trade tactics
Marshall concedes that the tariffs Trump imposed on China hurt Kansas farmers. But, he said, producers will benefit in the long run. He believes the get-tough tactics resulted in a “stronger” trade deal.
“I was just so grateful that Kansas farmers stood beside us and helped get us through those trade wars,” Marshall said. “They knew we had to stand up to this bully.”
On several occasions, Marshall has said the Phase One deal has boosted trade with China by 14%. However, U.S. exports to China during the first half of 2020 were down 4.6% compared to the first half of 2019 and 16.5% lower than the corresponding period in 2017.
And an analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics shows China falling far short of the purchasing targets it agreed to. For example, it committed to increase its purchases of U.S. agricultural goods by approximately $37 billion in 2020; halfway through the year, China had spent only $9.9 billion.
Bollier said that Marshall had the chance to stand up for Kansas farmers, but that he “instead chose to be a yes man for the president and for these harmful policies.”
But Marshall has the support of the Kansas Farm Bureau, an influential organization that represents thousands of farmers and ranchers.
“Our members like him and they respect him,” said Jackie Brundt, a Pratt County farmer who serves on KFB’s endorsement committee. “They’re the ones who said ‘Marshall’s our guy.’”
Immigration
In 2018, Marshall worked on a bipartisan immigration plan that, among other things, would have protected a visa program that supplies Kansas farmers with seasonal workers. He also questioned the practicality of Trump’s plan to fortify the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
When those positions led to attacks from rivals in this year’s primary race, Marshall pivoted to a more hardline stance on immigration. He embraced the wall and accused Bollier of being for “open borders and sanctuary cities.”
“She will open the door to all immigrants and they will get a free ride,” he said.
Responding during their recent debate, Bollier said Congress’ failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform is an example of “how broken Washington is.”
If elected, Bollier said, she would work for a bipartisan compromise that secures the border and protects “Dreamers who were brought to this country through no fault of their own.”
“I will be very supportive of making sure people have a path to citizenship,” she said.
Marshall said his efforts to strike a compromise have led him to the “disappointing” conclusion that “Democrats do not want to fix this situation.”
Climate change
Marshall has said voters can assume that Bollier’s switch to the Democratic Party means she supports “radical” proposals such as the Green New Deal, a sweeping plan advocated by more left-leaning Democrats to address climate change.
“The Green New Deal will be the end of Kansas agriculture,” Marshall asserted.
Bollier, however, said she doesn’t support the proposal, telling Marshall to “stop deceiving voters.”
Undeterred, Marshall said Democratic leaders in Washington will “come after her vote and she’s going to give it up.”
Polls give Marshall the edge but suggest the race could be the closest U.S. Senate contest in decades. A Democrat hasn’t won a U.S. Senate seat in Kansas since the 1930s.
Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on the health and well-being of Kansans, their communities and civic life. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks or email jim (at) kcur (dot) org. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
