JIM SUHR, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Big 12 Conference Commissioner Bob Bowlsby is publicly reprimanding Kansas State for failing to prevent Wildcats fans from pouring onto the court after the school’s upset victory over rival Kansas.

Bowlsby’s admonition Wednesday came the same day Kansas State student Nathan Power was publicly identified as the fan who body-checked Kansas forward Jamari Traylor after the Wildcats’ 70-63 victory Monday night.

Power has been cited for disorderly conduct and didn’t return messages Wednesday seeking comment.

No injuries resulted from the court-storming. But Bowlsby says Kansas State failed to ensure the safety and security of the players and fans. Calling what happened “a call to action,” he pressed for policy revisions to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, issued the following statement today ahead of Thursday’s scheduled vote on new Internet regulations proposed by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler:

“The most troubling fact about the FCC’s unprecedented expansion of regulatory authority is the profound lack of transparency. The FCC has never made the 332 pages of new rules public and now we have learned at least one Commissioner has requested an eleventh-hour change to the proposal. Congress and the American people deserve to know what the rules entail. A recent survey showed that 85 percent of Americans believe the FCC should either delay the vote until the full plan is made public or oppose any new regulations. On an issue of such importance to American consumers, the economy, and the future of the Internet this is unacceptable.

“Congress stands ready to work with the Administration on crafting commonsense net neutrality legislation, but the President is pushing the FCC to move forward. We know all too well how damaging the ‘we have to pass it so you can find out what is in it’ approach can be. By choosing this path, the FCC will leave Congress with no choice but to consider all options to scrutinize these rules. Just as the FCC believes Internet service providers should be held accountable for their network management practices, I believe the FCC should be held accountable for its potential interference in an Internet marketplace that has served Americans so well.”

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has rejected a bill to give the state’s Medicaid program more control over costly mental health drugs.

The vote Wednesday was 25-15 against the bill. Senators who opposed it said they are concerned about mentally ill participants in the Medicaid program not getting the drugs they need. Medicaid provides health care for the needy and disabled.

The bill would repeal a 2002 law that prohibits Medicaid from controlling prescriptions of mental health drugs with preferred drug lists, prior authorization requirements or other methods.

Supporters of the bill said it would protect mentally ill participants from being over-medicated with drugs that can have dangerous side effects.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration was pushing the measure because it believes the state could save $16 million a year on drugs.

By Dan Margolies

Gallup is out with a new poll showing falling uninsured rates in every state but one: Kansas. Although not statistically significant, the Sunflower State’s 1.9 point increase makes it the only state in the country to witness an uptick. In 2013, 12.5 percent of the state’s residents lacked health insurance; in 2014, that percentage had risen to 14.4 percent, according to the

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index results released Tuesday. Kansas is one of more than 30 states that opted not to set up its own state exchange, or health insurance marketplace, under Obamacare. And it’s one of 22 states that have declined to expand Medicaid.

As Gallup notes, of the 11 states with the greatest reductions, 10 both expanded Medicaid and set up a state-based exchange.

Only Montana, tied for 10th, did not. Missouri, which also did not establish its own exchange or expand Medicaid, saw its uninsured rate drop from 15.2 percent to 13.4 percent, a 1.8 point drop, according to Gallup. Some Kansas officials were skeptical back in August when the last Gallup results were released.

Those results showed the adult uninsured rate in Kansas had risen by 5.1 percentage points in mid-2014. They noted that while Kansas didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility, enrollment had increased because of the so-called woodwork effect – previously eligible people signing up as a result of the publicity about getting health insurance.

Linda Sheppard, a senior policy analyst at the Kansas Health Institute in Topeka and a former director of health care policy at the Kansas Insurance Department, is among those who remain skeptical of the latest results. The Kansas Health Institute is the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service, one of Heartland Health Monitor’s reporting partners.

“We had new people in the marketplace, several thousand people were added to the Medicaid rolls, and we knew that the (insurance) companies had been allowed to maintain those transitional plans in place and a large number of people kept those plans,” she says.

She allows, however, that the uninsured rate in Kansas could have gone up, noting that there are no data on people who have dropped coverage. “If this is happening for economic reasons because there are, for example, small employers who have discontinued offering their employees coverage, certainly there would definitely be people who lost coverage,” Sheppard says.

“And maybe at the time that these (Gallup) phone calls were made, they had not gotten a new job or had missed the opportunity to go onto the marketplace or had chosen not to do that.” While the decrease in Missouri’s uninsured rate was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent, Missouri Hospital Association spokesman David Dillon attributed the drop squarely to Obamacare. “

Last year we saw over 150,000 Missourians get coverage through the federal marketplace. This year the number is anticipated to be 250,000. That is a big chunk of the uninsured in this area,” he says.

“There were between 800,000 and 900,000 uninsured (in Missouri) before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, and now we’re seeing the marketplace as an effective tool in helping subsidize lower income people who haven’t been able historically to afford to buy insurance themselves, or who were ineligible for Medicaid because Missouri’s rate for Medicaid is very low.”

In Missouri, Medicaid eligibility for the non-disabled is limited to non-elderly adults with dependent children whose incomes don’t exceed 19 percent of the federal poverty level.

In Kansas, Medicaid eligibility is limited to non-elderly adults with dependent children who make no more than 32 percent of the federal poverty level, annually $7,770 for a family of four. About 300,000 low-income Missourians would gain coverage ifMedicaid eligibility were expanded to 138 percent of the poverty level, as envisioned under Obamacare.

In Kansas, expansion would extend coverage to an estimated 151,000 people. Gallup notes that states that chose to expand Medicaid and establish their own exchanges witnessed significantly greater drops in their uninsured rates than states that did neither.

Nationwide, the uninsured rate fell 3.5 points, to 13.8 percent from 17.3 percent, between 2013 and 2014, Gallup says – the lowest point in seven years. Reducing the number of people without health insurance was one of the chief aims of the Affordable Care Act – and by that yardstick, despite its continuing unpopularity as measured by polls, it appears to be succeeding. Arkansas and Kentucky recorded the biggest drops, according to Gallup – 11.1 points and 9.8 points, respectively.

And for the seventh straight year, Texas had the highest uninsured rate at 24.4 percent. That’s actually lower than the 27 percent it had in 2013 and the lowest rate to date for Texas, according to Gallup. The Gallup results were based on phone interviews with a random sample of 178,072 adults in 2013 and 176,702 adults in 2014.

 

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

WASHINGTON DC -The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced in a media release Tuesday that the remains of U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been accounted for and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They include Staff Sgt. John E. Copeland of Dearing, Kansas.

On April 10, 1944, 12 B-24D Liberator crew members took off from Texter Strip, Nazdab Air Field, New Guinea, on a mission to attack an anti-aircraft site at Hansa Bay.

The aircraft was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire over the Madang Province, New Guinea. Four of the crewmen were able to parachute from the aircraft, but were reported to have died in captivity.

Following World War II, the Army Graves Registration Service (AGRS) conducted investigations and recovered the remains of three of the missing airmen. In May 1949, AGRS concluded the remaining nine crew members were unrecoverable until now. In addition to Copeland they include

Army Air Forces 1st Lts. William D. Bernier of Augusta, Montana; Bryant E. Poulsen of Salt Lake City, Utah; Herbert V. Young Jr. of Clarkdale, Arizona and Tech Sgts. Charles L. Johnston of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Hugh F. Moore of Elkton, Maryland and Staff Sgt Charles J. Jones of Athens, Georgia; and Sgt. Charles A. Gardner of San Francisco, California, have been accounted for and buried with full military honors. Jones will be buried Feb. 28 in Athens, Georgia and Johnston will be buried March 2 in Arlington National Cemetery.

On March 18, there will be a group burial service at Arlington National Cemetery honoring Copeland, Poulsen, and the other crew members. Bernier was buried Sept. 19, 2014, in his hometown. Young was buried Oct. 15, 2014, in Prescott, Arizona Moore was buried on Nov. 11, 2014, in his hometown. Gardner was buried on Dec. 4, 2014 in Arlington National Cemetery.

In 2001, a U.S.-led team located wreckage of a B-24D that bore the tail number of this aircraft. After several surveys, DoD teams excavated the site and recovered human remains and non-biological material evidence.

To account for Copeland and Poulsen, scientists from DPAA used circumstantial evidence that placed them on the aircraft and accounted for them as part of the group.

Hutch Post

PRATT — Law enforcement officials in Pratt County are looking for two men who were in a pickup and led deputies on a high-speed chase Tuesday night.

The Sheriff’s office reported a deputy attempted to stop a 2000 Chevy pickup, traveling 80 miles per hour on Kansas 61 Highway about a mile north of Pratt just after 10:20 p.m.

The vehicle, occupied by two men, immediately turned west on NE 10th Street and entered a 30-mile per hour zone.

The truck continued at a high rate of speed, traveling in a zigzag pattern on many residential streets.

The deputy terminated the pursuit due to the risk factor of innocent persons.

A short time later, the Pratt Police Department located the vehicle and gave a brief pursuit, but the suspects immediately ditched the vehicle in the south end of Pratt and ran on foot.

Officers searched the area but the suspects were not located.

WICHITA , Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say homicides in the south-central Kansas city rose by 50 percent in 2014 while the local overall crime rate fell nearly 3 percent.

The Wichita Eagle reports that last year’s 26 homicides were nine more than in 2013. But last year’s numbers were consistent with the 28 homicides in 2102, 27 in 2011 and 26 in 2009.

The 280 reported rapes and 556 robberies in Wichita last year both were five-year highs.

The city’s interim police chief, Nelson Mosley, called 2014 “a challenging year full of opportunities.”

He says plans are on schedule to outfit about 500 police officers with body cameras by the end of the year, with funding sources, policies and procedures still being worked out.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s proposal to give his office the power to prosecute election fraud cases has won the state Senate’s approval.
Senators passed a bill containing Kobach’s plan on a 23-17 vote Wednesday. The measure goes next to the House.

The vote exposed a split among Kobach’s fellow Republicans. Nine GOP senators joined all eight Democrats in the chamber in voting against the bill.

Kobach is the architect of laws requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls and proof of U.S. citizenship when they register for the first time.

He says county prosecutors are usually too busy to pursue election fraud cases. But critics say there’s not enough election fraud to justify such a move.
The measure also boosts the penalties for election crimes.

JIM SUHR, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police say they’ve cited a Kansas State student for disorderly conduct after he body-checked a Kansas player during an on-court celebration following the Wildcats’ upset victory Monday over the visiting Jayhawks.

Kansas State police on Wednesday identified Nathan Power as the Wildcats fan who collided with Kansas forward Jamari Traylor after Kansas State’s 70-63 victory over eighth-ranked Kansas.

University police say a cooperative Power met voluntarily with them Tuesday, after police sought public help in identifying a photograph showing the student who made contact with Traylor.

Power didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to an Associated Press interview request sent to his student account. A message left at his Kansas City-area home wasn’t immediately returned.

A student identifying himself as Nathan Power also apologized in a letter Wednesday to the university newspaper.