(KAIR)--A strong attendance, but no controversy, as Republican United States Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins joined Kansas Republican Representative Dr. John Eplee at Saturday's Legislative Coffee, held at Atchison's Santa Fe Depot.

Jenkins addressed the crowd, offering remarks of remembrance in honor of Mike McDermed, Atchison's former Fire Chief who died last week. “I also wanted to just say what a wonderful community you have and just how proud I have been in representing you all in the last several years,” Jenkins said. “I appreciate so many people coming out on a cold Saturday morning just to talk about good governments and what we can do to better serve you. We are going to miss you fire chief, Mr. McDermed who lost his battle with cancer. He was just one of the good guys that always was so easy to work with. I know there's a lot of you in this room that will miss him as well.”

Services for McDermed will be Wednesday.

State issues dominated Saturday's forum, with Eplee addressing a wide variety of topics, ranging from KPERS funding, to his support of the expansion of KanCare. “This is purely a health care access bill for vulnerable Kansas' that cannot afford to get health care at this time that are between Medicaid currently as it exists and private insurance,” Eplee said. “This will not begin to cover all those people, it will cover a percentage of those people and those that are most vulnerable that are tied more closely to poverty.”

Eplee, who has been surveying his constituents for their opinion regarding expansion, says results have shown 2 to 1 support for that plan. An impromptus survey at Saturday's forum generated similar results. “As a physician and as someone who works with a lot of folks like this, I see a lot of merits in it,” he said. “There were hundreds of proponents for it from the state of Kansas.”

Eplee, citing how the bill was written, said it met his criteria for approval. “It has a work provision in it definitely, Eplee said. “It has poison pill in it such that if the federal match drops below 90 percent, we stop the program within a year. So, it met all my criteria for going forward.”

Last week, the plan for expansion passed the Kansas Senate, which followed passage in the House in February.

However, Governor Sam Brownback vetoed the bill, citing concerns that Eplee says don't match the reality of the situation. “He said it was going to fund Planned Parenthood further and was going to keep people who are disabled from getting on this disability list,” Eplee said. “To me, that was an incredible leap because there's nothing in the bill that gives any funds directly to Planned Parenthood. And as far as deferring people on the disability list, it's complicated, but really, we've chosen not to fund it up to this point so, to say this is deferring funding away from that, really in my opinion, is not accurate.”

Despite strong, bipartisan support, such as that from Eplee, the override of the veto failed. On Monday, the House voted 81-44 Monday to do that but backers of the measure fell three votes short of the two-thirds majority necessary.

Prior to Saturday's Legislative Coffee, rumors had circulated that protesters planned to attend, as they have at similar forums featuring federal Republican leaders. However, such a presence failed to materialize.