ESPN.com featured an astounding play from a Kansas high schooler in its “Instant Awesome” feature today.

Click HERE to take a look.

Governor Sam Brownback today issued a statement in honor of Veterans Day.

“Veterans Day is an important time to reflect on the cost of freedom, thank the men and women who protect our freedoms, and remember those who have willingly paid the ultimate price to defend us.

“America’s veterans have served honorably across the globe, and we owe them our respect and gratitude for their commitment to our nation and the ideals we value.

“On this Veterans Day I encourage all Kansans to take time to thank those who have served in our armed forces. Their efforts help ensure that we can continue to enjoy the freedoms our Founding Fathers passed down to us.

“To every veteran – those who have served and those who are serving today – I thank you on behalf of the people of Kansas. God bless.”

To view the Governor’s Veterans Day video message, click here.

 

By Jim McLean
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Kansas hospitals are moving ahead with plans to put a Medicaid expansion plan before lawmakers despite election results that returned Gov. Sam Brownback to office and solidified conservatives’ control of the Legislature.

Democrat Paul Davis favored expansion but came up short in his bid to upset Brownback, a Republican who thus far has opposed expansion. Also, several Democratic House members who likely would have favored expansion lost narrowly to GOP challengers.

Similar results across the country prompted national observers to declare expansion unlikely in Kansas and four other states where candidates who opposed expansion won close governor’s races.

“No one would say it was a good night for the prospects of Medicaid expansion,” Joan Alker, director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, told Kaiser Health News.

Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid eligibility, while Kansas and 20 other states have not. Policymakers in two states are considering the issue, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Signals sent

When talking to reporters on election night, Brownback gave no indication that he had changed his mind on Medicaid expansion.

“If you’re talking about Obamacare,” he said, “we’ll look at things another day for that.”

Tom Bell, CEO of the 136-member Kansas Hospital Association, didn’t expect an immediate change of heart. But now that the election is over, Bell said, he has reason to believe the Brownback administration and some legislative leaders will be more open to discussing expansion.

“Yes, we’ve had folks in the administration that have indicated that after the election this would be a different kind of discussion,” Bell said. “And we’re counting on that. We certainly plan to move forward.”

In Missouri, Sen. Ryan Silvey also intends to press ahead. The Kansas City Republican said “more and more people are coming to the realization” that expansion is needed to protect hospitals.

“It’s going to be damaging to our hospitals if we don’t do something,” Silvey said in late October.

Under the Affordable Care Act, disproportionate share hospital funds, which the federal government pays to health care providers to offset the costs of charity care, will be phased out starting Oct. 1, 2015. When the law was written, it was assumed hospitals would no longer need the disproportionate share hospital payments because millions of previously uninsured Americans would have either subsidized private coverage or Medicaid.

A study published in August by the nonpartisan Urban Institute said that not expanding Medicaid would cost Kansas and Missouri hospitals more than $9 billion in federal funding over a 10-year period. Losses would total $2.6 billion in Kansas and $6.8 billion in Missouri from 2013 to 2022, the report said.

The health reform law requires the federal government to shoulder all Medicaid expansion costs for three years. After that, the federal share will gradually decline until it reaches 90 percent, where it will remain.

About 300,000 low-income Missourians would gain coverage under expansion. In Kansas, expansion would extend coverage to an estimated 151,000 people with annual incomes up to 138 percent of poverty – $16,104 for individuals and $32,913 for a family of four.

Missouri lawmakers were close to striking a deal on Medicaid expansion last spring at the end of their regular session. Silvey has said the retirement of some the lawmakers who blocked the deal may help him gain approval of a compromise proposal in the upcoming session.

A Kansas plan

The Kansas Hospital Association has been working for months on an expansion plan that will be unique to the state, Bell said. Like plans crafted in states headed by Republican governors opposed to the ACA, the Kansas proposal likely will call for subsidizing the purchase of private insurance for those made eligible by expansion. And it will be tailored to work with KanCare, the state’s already privatized Medicaid system, he said.

“We have a private program right now,” he said. “It is being administered by private insurance companies. It just seems to us that we ought to build on that.”

Recognizing that the state’s growing budget problems loom as an obstacle to expansion, Bell said the KHA proposal will include a funding mechanism to lessen its cost to taxpayers. Funding options under consideration include raising a state assessment on hospitals. The state uses the assessment to bolster Medicaid rates paid to hospitals. That, in turn, triggers an increase in federal matching funds.

Expanding Medicaid eligibility would increase the amount generated by the assessment because of the higher federal match rate. But raising the assessment rate also is a possibility. Currently, hospitals pay assessments equal to 1.83 percent of their revenue. Federal law allows for assessments of up to 6 percent.

Good timing

A possible upside to the election results is that the Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate could motivate Obama administration officials to be more flexible when negotiating with states, Bell said. It could make them more open to Medicaid expansion proposals designed to appeal to conservatives that include elements such as work requirements and higher copays and deductibles.

Wyoming officials also appear to be banking on that. Just a few days after the election, Republican Gov. Matt Mead said he was moving forward with a Medicaid expansion plan tailored to the “needs” of the Cowboy state.

“Some of the areas we’re looking at is people who are on the program, that they have some of their own, as it’s said, ‘skin in the game,’” Mead said in the Casper Star-Tribune. “In other words, they would pay a portion of the premium; they would pay a portion of the deductible. There would be a workforce development plan involved in it. And those types of things, I think (federal officials) are more open to than they were a year ago, and certainly more than two years ago.”

Jim McLean is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A civil liberties group is drafting a response to an order from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor that blocks gay marriage in Kansas.

Sotomayor put a hold on a federal judge’s ruling that would have allowed same-sex unions in the state starting at 5 p.m. CST Tuesday.

That injunction came in a lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union. Kansas wants to enforce its ban while the lawsuit is reviewed.

Sotomayor directed the ACLU to respond Tuesday. The group expects that to be ready ahead of an afternoon deadline.

Gay rights advocates and state officials say even if Sotomayor clears the way for gay marriages in this case, it’s not clear how it would affect a separate case on the issue before the Kansas Supreme Court.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas gay-rights advocates are watching the U.S. Supreme Court as they hope same-sex couples can get marriage licenses this week.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday temporarily blocked gay marriages in Kansas, but it wasn’t clear how long she or the high court would continue to do so.

Sotomayor put on hold a federal judge’s injunction preventing the state from enforcing its gay-marriage ban. The lower-court ruling was to take effect at 5 p.m. CST Tuesday.

The judge’s injunction came in a lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union. Kansas wants to keep enforcing its ban while the lawsuit is reviewed.

Sotomayor directed the ACLU to respond Tuesday.

If the justice reconsiders, gay couples could head to Kansas courthouses Wednesday morning.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wesley Medical Center is planning to partner with Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri to establish a kidney transplant clinic.

Wesley spokesman Nick Adams tells The Wichita Eagle that though an exact date hasn’t been determined yet, the new Research Medical clinic will likely open sometime next month. He says that both hospitals think there’s a need in the community for the clinic.

Another Kansas City hospital, Saint Luke’s Hospital, opened a kidney transplant clinic in Wichita in August.

Research Medical has performed more than 1,000 kidney transplants. Saint Luke’s has performed more than 1,400.

A nephrologist, or a doctor that specializes in kidney care, with Kansas Nephrology Physicians said another kidney clinic in Wichita offers more options for patients needing transplants.

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The suspect in a Lawrence homicide is being evaluated at Larned State Hospital after a judge found her incompetent to stand trial for a burglary case in Topeka.

A Shawnee County District judge committed 38-year-old Angelica Kulp, of Lawrence, to Larned before she can be tried on misdemeanor theft and felony burglary charges. Authorities say she entered a man’s home, took money from his change jar and then hid in the closet.

Kulp is charged in Douglas County with first-degree murder in the July death of Christine Kaplan at the victim’s home in Lawrence.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports  the homicide case against Kulp in Douglas County District Court will not proceed until her case in Shawnee County is resolved.