Republicans and Democrats on a Medicaid oversight committee shared displeasure Friday with a funding cut to service providers and plans by Gov. Sam Brownback to consolidate seven distinct programs serving people with disabilities.

Leaders of organizations providing care to 400,000 disabled individuals under KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid system, received political support from lawmakers after outlining implications of the 4 percent, or $38 million, contraction in reimbursement rates invoked July 1 by Brownback to balance the state’s budget.

Rep. Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican and chairman of the joint House-Senate oversight panel, said he would sponsor legislation in the 2017 session to reinstate the funding.

"The provider cuts, we all realize, were a very tough thing for the system," he said.

The bipartisan panel witnessed a wave of testimony at the Capitol painting a bleak financial picture of Kansas organizations, especially in rural areas, under financial strain prior to the cut and going out of business as result of funding losses. They said frail elderly people, as well as those with developmental and physical disabilities or traumatic brain injuries deserving of Medicaid services, would suffer or die.

"It is necessary to express our strenuous objections to the budget cuts," said Chad Austin, of the Kansas Hospital Association. "At best, the cuts add to the burden already carried by health care providers across the state as they strive to provide care. At worst, they do permanent damage to the KanCare program and its ability to serve the most vulnerable in our state."

Linda MowBray, representing the Kansas Health Care Association and Kansas Center for Assisted Living, said Kansas officials had pressed a flawed privatization model to the breaking point. She said the Topeka-based organizations had sought to be good partners with the three insurance companies selected by the Brownback administration during implementation of the overhaul during the past three years.

"Why? Because we trusted the state had the best interest of Kansas elders, and those that provide care for them, at heart. We have been betrayed," MowBray said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Willie Dove, a Bonner Springs Republican on the oversight committee, said legislators were unlikely to embrace the executive branch’s strategy of combining the diverse set of Medicaid services for people in home- and community-based settings into larger units for adults and children.

"We can’t put any positive spin on this," Dove said. "We will fight that tooth and nail because it doesn’t appear it will help our constituents."

Michael Randol, director of health care finance in the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said the Brownback administration would develop the integration plan and submit it for review by the Legislature.

He also expressed the idea KanCare ought to be viewed as a policy success.

"I believe KanCare is working," Randol said. "We are being successful. Yes, we have challenges we have to overcome."

Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, said during Randol’s appearance that complaints about application delays, payment approvals and service reductions remained prominent at a time when two of the three KanCare companies reported improvement in financial positions during the past year.

All three reported net losses in Kansas in the year ending December 2014, but Amerigroup reported net income in December 2015 of $31 million and United disclosed $44 million in net income at that point. The third contractor, Sunflower, indicated negative net income of $16 million at the conclusion of 2015.

Randol said he was certain there was no "sinister" connection between managerial problems with KanCare and the companies’ net profit reports.

In conjunction with the oversight hearing, the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services disclosed the state’s waiting list for Medicaid services to people with physically disables had been taken to zero. In July, there were 438 on the waiting list and 5,975 receiving services. In 2008, Kansas provided services to 8,000 physically disabled people.

Tim Keck, acting secretary of the disability service agency, said investment of an estimated $65 million since 2013 on reducing waiting lists had resulted in the accomplishment.

"That is not to say that more people will not go on the waiting list in coming days," Keck said. "Individuals apply every week. But we have not provided an offer of services to all individuals who qualified."