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ONE YEAR IN, KANSAS GOP CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR STILL WON'T ANSWER FOR THE "BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 3, 2026
Contact:
Hans Torgerson
hans@kansasdems.org

ONE YEAR IN, KANSAS GOP CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR STILL WON'T ANSWER FOR THE "BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL"

Every Republican running for governor has either praised this bill or gone silent on the damage it's doing to Kansas families.

TOPEKA — Tomorrow marks one year since Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law, gutting health care, slashing food assistance, and devastating families and rural hospitals in order to deliver another massive tax giveaway to the ultra-wealthy.

Every Republican running for governor has either praised or refused to answer for the deeply unpopular law that’s cutting food assistance, threatening Medicaid, and pushing rural hospitals to the brink. 

THE TOLL ON KANSAS, ONE YEAR IN:

  • Food assistance: About 24,000 fewer Kansans, including 11,000 children, are receiving SNAP benefits than a year ago, a 13% drop that has pushed enrollment to its lowest level since 2005. Kansas food banks say they can provide only one meal for every nine that SNAP provides, and they cannot fill the gap.

  • Medicaid cuts: The law cuts federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $1.02 trillion nationally and phases in a 10% annual cut to Kansas hospitals' Medicaid reimbursement rates starting in 2028. The Kaiser Family Foundation projects 63,000 more Kansans will be uninsured by 2034.

  • Rural hospitals at risk: An estimated 67 of Kansas' 100 rural hospitals are at risk of closing, 30 of them immediately, giving Kansas more at-risk rural hospitals than any other state in the country.

  • Rural hospitals paying the price: Statewide, Kansas hospitals stand to lose up to $2.65 billion in Medicaid funding over the next decade. Freeman Health System has already scrapped plans for a new southeast Kansas hospital, citing the law's "unpredictable impact."

REPUBLICANS CHEERED THE BILL. NONE WILL OWN WHAT IT'S DOING TO KANSAS.

  • Ty Masterson praised the bill directly: "Thank you to President Trump and our Kansas Republican U.S. House members for standing up for Kansans and passing the One, Big, Beautiful Bill!" As Kansas Senate President, he told reporters on the Legislature's opening day that embracing the bill was one of his top priorities for 2026 — with zero mentions of the threats to health care, food banks, or rural hospitals.

  • Scott Schwab publicly praised the bill and told Kansans to "lock in" its provisions. Schwab has built his entire campaign around "revitalizing rural communities," then praised the same law causing more rural hospitals to be at risk of closing in Kansas than in any other state. 

  • Charlotte O'Hara and Philip Sarnecki have stayed silent and refused to speak consistently on the bill’s effects on Kansans. 

STATEMENT FROM KANSAS DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR REPASS:

“Ty Masterson has spent this campaign chasing Donald Trump’s approval while Kansas families are left to pay the price for another tax giveaway to the ultra-wealthy. He and the rest of the Republican field have stood by while 24,000 Kansans lose food assistance, Medicaid is cut, rural hospitals being pushed closer to closure, and the farmers and rural communities are hit hardest. Kansas needs a governor who will fight for Kansans, not defend Washington’s cost-raising agenda.”

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