Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback, disclosed at a press conference earlier today that he would take action to close hospitals around the state due to the frustrating medicaid backlog. The number of unprocessed Medicaid applications had been about 3,500 people before the state acknowledged earlier this month that the actual figure was more than 15,000.

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The Governor also stated,

“KanCare has overall worked very well,” Brownback said. “Not that it hasn’t had difficulties, but overall I’ve been very pleased with the program, but this is something we thought we were getting the number down much faster — we’re getting the number down, but it’s not as fast as it needs to go.”

But, clearly something is wrong if he has intentions to shut down major hospitals throughout the entire state of Kansas. Once again, Governor Brownback would leave the poor, simple-minded farming folks of Kansas without any kind of major medical facility to go to when the good old tractor runs over a foot or Uncle Bo gets his arm twisted in a tractor gear.

Kansas has told federal officials the previous low backlog figure came because of an error by Accenture, the company Kansas contracted for the electronic eligibility system. And, as a result, Kansas has said it will withhold a $750,000 payment to Accenture over misreporting of the backlog.