BELOIT- A Kansas teen was injured in an accident just after 10 p.m. on Friday in Mitchell County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1987 Chevy pickup driven by Hannah Marie Pavelka, 16, Jewel, was northbound on Mitchell County 210 Road just north of Kansas 14.

The vehicle drifted into the east ditch. The driver overcorrected and the vehicle traveled into the west ditch, struck the embankment and overturned.

Pavelka, was transported to Mitchell County Hospital.

The KHP reported she was not wearing a seat belt.

By JIM MCLEAN
More than 300,000 consumers in Kansas and Missouri have a stake in the case argued Wednesday in the U.S. Supreme Court over a provision in the Affordable Care Act.

The vast majority of people who purchased Affordable Care Act coverage in both states qualified for federal tax credits. But they could lose those credits if the court rules that only consumers using state-based marketplaces are entitled to them.

Neither Kansas nor Missouri established its own online insurance marketplaces, forcing consumers in both states to use the healthcare.gov site created by the federal government.

The latest legal challenge to the ACA hinges on whether Congress intentionally limited subsidies to state-based marketplaces to encourage states to set them up. Defenders of the law insist that Congress intended no such restriction.

The court is expected to hand down its decision in late June.

That could make for an anxious three months for the hundreds of thousands of consumers in Kansas and Missouri whose health coverage could be at risk if the court invalidates the tax credits they used to purchase it.

In Kansas, 80 percent of the 96,226 people who purchased health insurance in the ACA’s federal marketplace received tax credits to offset a portion of their premiums, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those tax credits averaged $214 a month.

In Missouri, 88 percent of the 253,969 people who purchased ACA coverage qualified for tax credits, which averaged $284 a month, according to HHS.

If the court invalidates the credits, consumer advocates in both states say many of the people who purchased insurance on the exchanges no longer would be able to afford it.

“They would immediately lose that subsidy and would have to decide if they could come up with the money to pay the full price of their insurance policy,” says Sheldon Weisgrau, director of the Health Reform Resource Project in Kansas.

If that happens, Weisgrau says, older, sicker people would be the most likely to do whatever they can to hang onto their policies. Younger, healthier people would be more likely to risk going without coverage, he says.

Over time, those changes would drive up premiums for everyone.

“It will really create a lot of damage to the whole insurance market,” Weisgrau says.

An analysis by the Missouri Hospital Association indicates the loss of federal subsidies would trigger a 4.3 percent increase premiums across the state. Premiums in Kansas would increase by almost 3.3 percent, according to the analysis.

The Associated Press reported that Missouri Sen. Bob Onder, a Republican of Lake St. Louis, presented a bill to a committee Wednesday barring insurers in Missouri from accepting subsidies from the federal government. Onder said congressional action would be needed to fully dismantle the Affordable Care Act but the bill would be a first step.

Linda Sheppard, a senior analyst at the Kansas Health Institute and director of health care policy and analysis at the Kansas Insurance Department when Congress passed the ACA, helped direct early discussions about how to implement the law in Kansas and whether to create a state marketplace. At the time, Sheppard says, there was no discussion about the possibility that Kansas consumers wouldn’t be eligible for federal subsidies if the state failed to create its own marketplace.

“It never came up,” she says. “There was never a hint of that.”

Editor’s note: KHI News Service is affiliated with but editorially independent of the Kansas Health Institute.

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas legislative committee plans next week to review a proposed ban on an abortion procedure targeted by a national group and described as dismembering a fetus.

Chairman Steve Brunk said the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee will have a hearing Monday on a bill imposing the ban. The measure passed the Senate last month.

The bill outlaws the dilation and evacuation procedure and redefines it as “dismemberment abortion.” Doctors could not use clamps, forceps or similar instruments on a fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces.

Abortion rights supporters say it’s sometimes the safest procedure for a woman.

The National Right to Life Committee drafted the measure as model legislation for states.

The procedure is used in about 8 percent of Kansas abortions.

LANSING- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 5:30 p.m. on Friday in Leavenworth County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2012 Suzuki Motorcycle driven by Jacob Tanner 35, Leavenworth, was southbound on U.S. 73 just south of Mary in the city of Lansing.

The motorcycle rear-ended a 2010 Chrysler 300 driven by Shannon Cooper, 40, Kansas City.

Tanner was transported to Overland Park Regional Medical Center. The KHP reported he was wearing a helmet.
Cooper was not injured and fled the scene according to the KHP.

JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) — A coalition of states suing to stop President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration alleges the government misled a judge about not implementing part of the plan before the judge temporarily halted it.

The allegation was made in court documents filed Thursday in response to a Justice Department filing that acknowledged some deportation reprieves were granted before the Feb. 16 injunction.

Government attorneys had previously said officials wouldn’t accept such requests under Obama’s action until Feb. 18. However, the DOJ claims in its court filing Tuesday that the 100,000 immigrants who were granted three-year reprieves and work permits were already eligible under a previous immigration plan from 2012.

The states are asking the judge for access to more information about the actions.

MANHATTAN -Alexander McConnell appeared in Riley County Court Friday morning facing charges of 1st degree murder and child abuse. The hearing was supposed to be a preliminary hearing, but unexpectedly,

McConnell waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

McConnell was arrested on September 29, 2014 following the death of a child identified as “AKM” in the in the case’s criminal affidavit.

The document said that McConnell’s wife Angela had left the child with Alexander for a short period of time, and when she returned the child was not breathing.

The infant was taken to Mercy Regional Hospital in Manhattan, and then to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
The child died that evening.

During the autopsy, the medical examiner found the child had experienced previous substantial bleeding in the skull, as well as injuries to it’s neck, head, and ribs.

Arraignment in the case is set for March 23.