The basis of her objection is a Kansas Supreme Court decision last year that protects a woman's right to have an abortion. Wagle is insisting that she won't move on Medicaid until a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution, which has failed in the Kansas House, is passed and put on the ballot for voters to decide in the fall. Denning insists there is no connection between the two issues—any pregnant women on Medicaid in the state would be covered not by the expansion part of Medicaid but by traditional Medicaid, which the state has already decided cannot cover abortion. Federal law, thanks to the Hyde Amendment, does not allow federal funding for abortion. States can allow their own portion of shared Medicaid funding to go toward providing abortion services, but of course Kansas does not do that.

This is a fake fight, one that Denning sees as a result of the selfish politics of his fellow Republican. "The bill is full of really good healthcare policy for not only the Medicaid population, but the non-Medicaid population as well," Denning said. "She’s taking the position to hold up the entire process because she's worried about 1,000 people are getting pregnant and becoming taxpayer funded, elective abortions," he continued. "So, it's a stretch." A stretch that's keeping as many as 150,000 people out of the program because, he suggests, of her U.S. Senate run and "stopping 'Obamacare,' Medicaid expansion in every fashion, [which] would play well to her base."