By TIM CARPENTER
Kansas Reflector
Democrats question Speaker Dan Hawkins’ plan to lower Medicaid spending
TOPEKA — Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins said the 2026 Legislature would strive to slash $200 million from the state government’s budget and seek to reduce expenditures on the Medicaid program delivering health care to low-income adults and children.
Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who has served 13 years in the Legislature, said during an interview at an American Legislative Exchange Council conference in Indianapolis that he was proud the 2025 Legislature took the lead in crafting the current state budget. Ahead of the 2025 session, a Republican-controlled committee of the House and Senate developed its own budget bill rather than wait for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s recommendation, as traditionally presented to lawmakers in January.
Despite Republicans in the House and Senate operating with partisan supermajorities since Kelly’s election in 2018, Hawkins was critical in the interview of what he calculated to be a 60% rise in spending during Kelly’s seven years as governor.
In the past legislative session, Hawkins said, the House and Senate whittled down the state budget for 2025-2026 to more than $200 million below the amount it approved for 2024-2025.
“That first $200 million is probably the easy one to cut,” Hawkins said during the ALEC interview. “It starts getting harder every year after that. I think we’ll come in next year and we’ll probably cut about $200 million out of the budget.”
He said the Legislature’s decision to consolidate its grip on the budget process at the Capitol resulted in a bill that spent less than the amount sought by Kelly.
“The governor still says that we spend too much, but we cut $43 million,” Hawkins told his ALEC audience.
In response to an inquiry, Hawkins’ staff clarified the actual year-to-year cut by the Legislature was $38 million below spending proposed by Kelly. The Legislature did vote for $43 million in deletions, but some were vetoed by the governor. The Legislature chose not to override all of Kelly’s line-item vetoes. That left the overall cut at $38 million — not $43 million.
“Governor Kelly has always prioritized responsible fiscal management, and the results speak for themselves: fully funded schools, record-breaking economic development and historic investments in the state water plan,” said Will Lawrence, the governor’s chief of staff. “Speaker Hawkins can play with the numbers all he wants, but the reality is the financial path he advocates for is eating through the state’s ending balance and threatening to undo all the progress Kansas has made in the last seven years.”
Lawrence said cutting Medicaid would strain the state’s rural health system and endanger 443,000 Kansans who participate in the health program. Kelly has spent years advocating for expansion of eligibility for Medicaid in Kansas.
“Unserious, misinformed proposals like these are not what Kansans deserve, and I suggest Speaker Hawkins talk to Kansans about their priorities, not conservative think tank staffers,” Lawrence said.
Other perspectives
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes and House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard, who lead Democrats in the Legislature, offered perspectives on Hawkins’ interview with Lars Dalseide, ALEC’s director of policy advancement and media relations.
Sykes said GOP legislative leadership’s overhaul of the budget process for the 2025 session served “to advance their priorities without regard for bipartisanship or public input.”
Democrats, for example, objected to the GOP-led Legislature’s deletion from the governor’s budget of $62 million for special education in public schools. Also cut was $10 million for the Kansas Blueprint for Literacy, a program to develop reading instructional skills among licensed teachers and college students preparing to become educators.
A core objective of Republican legislators has been to advance tax cuts most beneficial to wealthy Kansans, Sykes said.
“Fiscal responsibility is just a talking point to Republicans,” Sykes said. “Time and time again, they say they want to dig deeper into the budget, but the reality is they want to give away big tax breaks to their donors on the backs of working Kansans. Senate Democrats will continue to stand for true fiscal stability and not just partisan talking points.”
The Legislature is controlled by Republican supermajorities in the 125-member House and 40-member Senate. The two-thirds partisan advantage has meant the GOP could override any veto by Kelly. In the House, Republicans hold an 88-37 edge. The margin stands at 31-9 in the Senate.
The Medicaid issue
Hawkins, who is seeking the Republican Party’s 2026 nomination for state insurance commissioner, said the Legislature should strive during the upcoming session in Topeka to reduce spending on Medicaid.
He said there were opportunities for the Legislature to restrict expenditures by getting rid of inefficiencies.
“Just like we’ve seen on the federal level, Medicaid has lots of opportunity,” Hawkins said. “I think that when we really start looking, we’ll find some duplicative efforts.”
Woodard, who has urged the Legislature to broaden eligibility for Medicaid to more lower-income adults, said the House speaker’s plan to reduce health services for children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and the elderly was misguided.
“At a time when Kansans are struggling to make ends meet, Republicans are threatening to further cut Medicaid at the expense of our most vulnerable Kansans,” he said.
Sen. Patrick Schmidt, a Topeka Democrat who served on the Senate’s government efficiency committee, said attempts to undermine Medicaid in the quest for efficiencies jeopardized the well-being of thousands of adults and children in Kansas. Claims of widespread inefficiency within Medicaid have been exaggerated, he said.
“When they say those words, they’re just lying,” he said. “Medicaid helps people get back to work.”