Well, there’s big news in Kansas: Sam Brownback is headed off to Washington, D.C., to become the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

I think there is a pretty good chance we won’t hear much about the breakthroughs in religious freedom that come from having “my ideology or you’re out of here” Sam in charge. In fact, we probably won’t hear much about the work of the ambassador for religious freedom at all, considering that about 99.4% of Americans likely had no idea the post even existed, even though it’s been around for several years.

We still don’t have ambassadors to fill embassies in such friendly countries as the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Denmark and Norway. Nor do we have diplomats in place in such sensitive countries as Russia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar or Yemen. Although nominees have been named in some cases, the paperwork that would enable the Senate to confirm them has not been completed.

Worse yet, five out of six undersecretary positions in the State Department and 22 of 24 assistant secretaries have not been appointed. There are a lot of empty desks and echoing hallways at Foggy Bottom. But, by golly, we have now got someone in line to strive — from Washington, D.C. — to solve the problems of religious freedom around the world.

Time will tell if Brownback’s paperwork moves any faster into the confirmation process, but already Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, a plastic surgeon by trade, is preparing to move into Cedar Crest and take up the tasks that Brownback leaves behind as he departs Kansas — most of which have to do with repairing the damage done by years of waiting for the benefits of eliminating taxes on 330,000 businesses to kick in.

Colyer seems ready to take on the task while voicing support for the Brownback path. He has some interesting challenges coming up sooner rather than later, and some of the thorniest are in the field he knows best — medicine.

KanCare, the privatized, managed-care, market-based system that Kansas put in place instead of Medicaid, faces a Dec. 31 expiration of approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The CMS found many issues with the administration of KanCare and denied the state’s request for a one-year extension in January of 2017.

Several state legislators have said they expect to get a better reception from the Trump administration for KanCare, but the state still has to apply for an extension and, as of the time of Brownback’s resignation at the end of July, that had not yet happened.

Colyer, who was the leader in the creation of KanCare, has praised the system as working great and said he expects Medicaid in other states to look a lot like KanCare five years from now. Critics have cited numerous problems with the program including difficulty working with the managed care organizations that manage it, mountains of paperwork, repeated denial of claims, slow payments and other billing problems.

Initially, KanCare was created to save money on Medicaid, and the Brownback administration says the state has saved $1.4 billion since it was implemented, based on 2012 projections of what would have been spent on traditional Medicaid had the program not changed.

The numbers show, however, that costs under KanCare have gone up faster than they were going up in years before it was enacted.

Once Colyer gets past the KanCare hurdle — depending on what happens in Washington with any health care reform effort — he could be faced almost immediately with another legislative push to expand Medicaid, which is favored by almost all of his colleagues in the world of doctors and hospitals, but which he, like Brownback, has opposed.

The Kansas State Hospital Association has campaigned strongly for Medicaid expansion and points to the fact that, without it, hospitals are struggling financially with almost a third of the state’s critical access hospitals in danger of closing. A continuous update of federal funds lost to the state by failure to expand Medicaid now totals more than $2 billion.

Also, Colyer faces problems with handling health services for the mentally ill. Both of the state’s in-patient mental hospitals face problems, with Osawatomie moving toward its second year of lost Medicare certification, decaying buildings and shortage of staff. The hospital is supposed to have space for 206 patients but is currently capped at 146 because of staff shortages.

The state’s other mental health hospital at Larned is also facing staffing shortages that are exacerbated by the remote location and the fact that it is also a correctional facility, housing habitual sex offenders.

Also on Colyer’s plate as he takes office is a looming court decision on whether the latest legislative effort to repair school financing is adequate and a growing urgency to repair highways and bridges. The Department of Transportation was put deeply in debt by having not only its long-term funds, but also the revenue from two bond sales swept into the general fund to keep the state running.

Legislators last year overturned Brownback’s signature tax cut legislation and then overrode his veto to put the taxes back in place. They even voted to make the taxes retroactive, which could create a backlash as residents file taxes in January of 2018 and discover the extent to which their withholding did not cover their state taxes.

We do indeed, live in interesting times. Godspeed, Gov. Brownback.