Davids Visits with Community Health Navigators, Discusses Her Work to Protect Affordable Health Care and Lower Costs
OLATHE, KS - Today, Representative Sharice Davids visited El Centro in Olathe, KS to discuss her work to protect affordable health care for all Kansans and to celebrate the recent 14th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. A record of more than 21 million Americans enrolled in quality health care under the Affordable Care Act in 2023, including 171,376 Kansans. Thanks to recent Davids-supported legislation, people in Kansas’ Third District are saving $780 per year on their ACA coverage.
While Davids is working to protect and expand access to affordable health care, extreme politicians are once again pushing unpopular attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. These extreme proposals would strip coverage from millions of Americans, allow discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, and even eliminate Medicaid coverage for children and families.
"14 years ago, the passage of the Affordable Care Act changed lives. Since then, we've fought off attacks that would have stripped coverage from people with pre-existing conditions and we've passed tax cuts that saved people thousands of dollars on premiums," said Davids. "However, as prescription drug costs are still too high and extremist politicians are threatening to hike health care costs and eliminate coverage for families, our work is far from over. We must continue strengthening the ACA, ensuring no one faces the impossible choice between utility bills and essential medicine for their loved ones."
“Since the launch of the Federal Marketplace Exchange, El Centro has offered enrollment assistance in Spanish for individuals and families looking for health coverage,” said Justin Gust, Vice President of Community Engagement, El Centro. “El Centro became a Certified Application Counselor Designated Organization (CDO), allowing our staff to receive needed training and certification to help with enrollment. Even though we did not receive funding for this work at the time, it was important for us to become a CDO because we knew our community would need help in Spanish and would not be able to receive help elsewhere. We have partnered in many collaborations over the years to ensure that education about the Marketplace is available in Spanish, so our community knows they too are eligible and can receive assistance. For the past three years El Centro has been a subgrantee of Thrive Allen County, which has provided funding for our two Marketplace Navigators and increased our education and outreach efforts.”
Davids voted for the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which expanded financial assistance for purchasing health insurance coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. As a result, 80 percent of federal marketplace enrollees could find a plan for $120 or less per year. This increased enrollment has helped push the number of uninsured Americans to a record low of 7.7 percent in 2023, and the total number receiving their health insurance through an ACA marketplace reached an all-time high of 21 million in 2024.
Davids is a fierce advocate for making health care more affordable and accessible to all Kansans. She voted to give Medicare the power to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, cap insulin costs for Kansans on Medicare at $35 a month, and cap Medicare beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 per year. She also supported legislation to protect patients from out-of-network surprise medical bills, which has shielded patients from millions of surprise bills since passage. This law included Davids’ original legislation to improve insurer transparency, helping patients avoid unintentional out-of-network health care visits.
During her visit to El Centro in Olathe, KS, Davids met with organizational leadership and other staff to discuss their Health Navigation program. Health Navigation is designed to help Kansans families get access to affordable, quality health care services. Since 2016, El Centro has helped over 689 individuals enroll into a marketplace health plan and 134 individuals enroll into Medicaid through healthcare.gov. Kansans looking for health care assistance can call El Centro at 913-677-0100 and ask for 'Health Navigation.' There is a Health Navigator at El Centro’s Kansas City, KS and Olathe offices.