WICHITA- Southwest Airlines is going to cut flights from Wichita. On April 11, Southwest will discontinue service to Dallas Love Field and Chicago Midway from Wichita Eisenhower National Airport, according to a city of Wichita press release.
Southwest Airlines will offer daily nonstop service to St. Louis and Phoenix from Wichita Eisenhower National Airport. The St. Louis service will be offered twice daily; the Phoenix service once a day.
Southwest officials said the two new routes stem from changing travel patterns between Wichita and Dallas Love Field and Wichita and Chicago Midway. Southwest will still offer Wichita travelers low-fare service to Chicago Midway through St. Louis and to Dallas Love through St. Louis and Phoenix.
“The new routes will expand options for customers in Wichita to get to popular destinations,” said Dan Landson, a Southwest spokesman. “These new destinations connect our customers to the people and places that are important to them with minimal travel time and fewer stops.”
“This new service provides two new, daily nonstop destinations and shows Southwest’s commitment to Wichita,” said Valerie Wise, the Wichita Airport Authority’s Air Service & Business Development Manager.
From St. Louis, Southwest serves 35 nonstop markets and will give Wichita travelers convenient connections to top markets such as Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Newark, Baltimore, Washington National, Orlando, Nashville, San Antonio, among others. The St. Louis route provides Wichita travelers fare relief to many top markets to the north and east.
From Phoenix Sky Harbor, Southwest serves 49 nonstop markets including Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco Denver, Spokane, Los Angeles, Oakland, Ontario, Portland, and Sacramento. Phoenix is the fifth top destination from the Wichita airport.
When Rep. Jim Ward read the latest lawsuit brought by Kansas officials against the Affordable Care Act, the Wichita Democrat thought the federal action at the center of the suit sounded familiar. “My first thought was, ‘Wait a minute, didn’t we just do this
Photo by Dave Ranney Gov. Sam Brownback and other Kansas officials issued news releases outlining a lawsuit against the federal government. The suit claims a provision of the ACA that imposes a tax on health care plans is unlawful because it also applies to insurance companies that have contracts to administer Medicaid, known in Kansas as KanCare.
about four months ago?’”
Ward said, referring to the Legislature increasing a tax on health plans. “And why is one better than the other?”
Republican state leaders who initiated the lawsuit say it’s an essential part of an ongoing fight against federal overreach by President Barack Obama’s administration. Democrats say the state is suing the federal government for doing the same thing — increasing a tax on Medicaid health insurance plans — that the Republican-led Legislature did in June to help close a $400 million budget gap.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Gov. Sam Brownback issued news releases last week outlining the lawsuit, in which Kansas is joined by Texas and Louisiana.
The suit claims a provision of the ACA that imposes a tax on health care plans is unlawful because it also applies to insurance companies that have contracts to administer Medicaid, known in Kansas as KanCare.
The plaintiffs claim the health insurance provider fee amounts to a backdoor tax on state treasuries in order to fund the federal law, because Kansas has to pay to defray a portion of the KanCare companies’ new tax. The suit seeks to recoup $32.8 million Schmidt said the state has paid since 2014 and stop future payments.
“If the federal government wants to tax and spend, it may do so within the confines of the law,” Schmidt said in the news release.
“But it may not, we think, employ accounting tricks that force the states to do the taxing while the federal government does the spending.
Kansas has state priorities for that $32 million that do not include financing the federal government’s operations.”
In a statement lending support to the suit, Brownback said the federal government was threatening to pull its $1.6 billion portion of the state’s $3 billion Medicaid program unless the state complies with the fees. “This is just one more instance of an overreaching federal regulation designed to coerce states into funding or participating in Obamacare,” the governor said.
Accounting tricks?
Kansas Democrats called the suit and Schmidt and Brownback’s comments politically motivated and hypocritical, given that the state employed a similar “accounting trick” to help balance the budget during the 2015 session. Income tax cuts passed in 2012 have created an imbalance between taxes and spending in Kansas, and the Republican-controlled Legislature was forced to work overtime last session to balance the budget.
One of the few things most in the majority agreed on was increasing a “privilege fee” on health maintenance organizations (HMOs), including the three insurance companies that administer KanCare.
The Legislature ultimately upped the fee from 1 percent to 3.31 percent, drawing in a projected $47.8 million to help balance the general fund. Private-sector HMOs took a financial hit, but the maneuver brought in enough federal matching funds for the state to reimburse the three KanCare companies for their portion of the increase.
Ward called the move “directly equivalent to what the feds are doing” with the provider fee named in the latest ACA lawsuit. “The difference is what we spend the money for,” he said.
“The feds want to spend it on expanding access to health care, and the state’s filling a massive budget deficit created by our tax loophole.” Ward said the state enacted a similar assessment on Medicaid providers in 2010: a “bed tax” that was extended in 2013. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Democrat from Topeka, said Schmidt characterizing the federal fee as an “accounting trick” amounts to the “pot calling the kettle black.”
“It’s very hypocritical, on Derek Schmidt’s part, and really the Republican leadership’s part,” Hensley said.
‘A political football’
In a statement emailed Monday, Schmidt defended the suit without addressing the minority party’s complaints of hypocrisy. “There should be bipartisan objection to this unprecedented and unlawful attempt by the federal government to levy a tax on states,” Schmidt said.
This is the third lawsuit Kansas has joined against the ACA, commonly called “Obamacare.”
Hensley said the litigation is a waste of state resources. Republicans continue to use the ACA as a campaign talking point, he said, rather than seriously addressing health insurance coverage issues. “The ACA in Kansas is just a political football that they continually kick around,” Hensley said.
Previous lawsuits against the ACA have had mixed results.
In NFIB v. Sebelius, the plaintiffs challenged the law’s mandate that most U.S. citizens carry health insurance and its requirement that states expand Medicaid to cover residents earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty limit. In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate 5-4 but struck down the Medicaid expansion mandate, ruling that states should be able to decide whether they want to expand.
In King v. Burwell, the plaintiffs argued that the law as written does not allow the federal government to subsidize private health insurance purchases in states that did not establish their own online exchange. Earlier this year the court struck down that argument 6-3.
In the latest suit, Schmidt and the other plaintiffs reference the Medicaid expansion decision and argue that the provider fee portion of the ACA is similarly coercive to states. They also argue that the states were not provided proper notice of fee increases.
Outside opinions
In a column published by the Daily Signal, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the states have a strong case.
“There is no question that this is a serious lawsuit raising substantive issues against the Obamacare law and the way it has been implemented in relation to Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs,” he wrote.
Spakovsky said the case would almost certainly end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Timothy Jost, a Washington and Lee University School of Law professor who has written extensively on the ACA, disagreed.
In a phone interview, Jost said the plaintiffs had “picked their judge pretty carefully” by filing suit in Judge Reed O’Connor’s U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. But even if O’Connor gives a verdict favorable to the plaintiffs, it likely would be appealed and Jost said he did not see the Supreme Court taking it up if the U.S. appellate courts find the suit has no merits.
Jost said the significant difference between the latest suit and the Medicaid expansion suit is that the court ruled that Medicaid expansion is an entirely new program the states were being coerced to participate in. The provider fee has been part of Medicaid since before the ACA, he said, and the court would be unlikely to view revising it as creating a new program.
“In one instance the Supreme Court found that the federal government was effectively trying to make states set up a new program rather than comply with the requirements of the old program,” Jost said.
“But Chief Justice (John) Roberts made it amply clear that this wasn’t a sweeping ruling now that was going to free the states from any future requirements imposed on the Medicaid programs.”
Jost said the Kansas Legislature’s move to increase the HMO privilege fee, though not unusual, did sound substantially similar to what the state is now suing the federal government for doing.
“It’s kind of silly,” he said. “The federal government is taxing the plans, and then the states have to pay the plans and the federal government pays the states. So the money’s just moving in circles.
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
Hays firefighters respond to a house fire late Tuesday morning on East 15th Street.
UPDATE:
The Hays Police and Fire Departments responded to a house on fire at 509 E.15th at 11:20 a.m. The cause of the fire is arson and is being investigated by the Hays Police Department and the State Fire Marshall’s Office. No one was injured during the fire and there was moderate damage to the structure.
The perpetrator of the crime has been identified. The HPD is not releasing the name of the suspect or further details at this time.
Check Hays Post for details as they become available.
Hays Fire Department
At 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, the City of Hays Fire Department, assisted by the Hays Police Department and Ellis County EMS, was dispatched to a building fire at 509 East 15th Street. On arrival, firefighters found a fire burning on the exterior of a single family dwelling.
Firefighters quickly controlled the fire using one hose line. A second hose line was deployed as a precaution while the building was checked to make sure the fire had not spread inside.
The building sustained moderate damage to the exterior. The cause of the fire is being investigated.
Four fire trucks and fifteen firefighters responded. The last firefighters left the scene at 12:32 p.m.
Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson-photo Kansas Dpt. of Education
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson has unveiled a new vision for schools that would create individualized education plans for each student.
Watson shared the State Board of Education’s vision Tuesday at the Kansas Department of Education’s conference in Wichita. It places equal focus on academic and nonacademic skills to help graduates be successful in the workforce.
The ideas presented stem from community meetings held across the state this year to find out what people want from K-12 education.
Watson says carrying out the vision will mean having different graduation requirements and less emphasis on standardized tests.
He says the individualized education plans will require hiring more school counselors.
He says businesses will be asked to play a larger role through internships and job shadowing.
SALINA- A Kansas man was injured in an accident on Monday morning in Saline County.
Saline County Sheriff’s Captain Roger Soldan said a pickup driven by Tyler Donavan, 30, Salina, was traveling on Kansas 140 just east of Interstate 135.
The pickup made a left turn and was rear ended by a Foley Industry Service Truck driven by Neal Black, 35, Beverly.
Donavan was transported to Salina Regional Medical Center with a possible head injury, according to Soldan.
Black was not injured. He was cited for following too close.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for a Topeka man charged after an explosion in his car severely injured his 4-year-old son.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Jacob Daniel Schell faces charges including aggravated battery of the child and criminal use of explosives stemming from the July 2014 incident.
Court records show his son was injured when a sack containing explosives blew up in his lap. The child sustained serious injuries to his leg and severe burns to 40 percent of his body.
The preliminary hearing is scheduled for January when the judge will decide if the defendant should stand trial on the charges.
Halloween is a few days away and the Hays Police Department would like to remind parents, trick-or-treaters, drivers and community members of some safety tips.
Adults:
• Welcome trick-or-treaters with your porch lights and exterior lights on.
• Keep pets away from costumed children so as to not startle the family dog that may not recognize children in costume.
• Report any suspicious or criminal activity to the Hays Police Department immediately.
Motorists:
• Exercise extreme caution when driving a vehicle.
• Be on the alert for excited children (whose vision may be obscured by masks) darting out into traffic.
Parents:
• Remind your children to never trick-or-treat alone.
• Set a time limit for your children to trick-or-treat, and designate a specific route for them to take. An adult should accompany any younger children.
• Costumes should be easily seen if out after dark and they should not restrict their vision.
• Trick-or-treaters should carry a flashlight or a glow stick if out after dark to help keep them visible for motorists.
• Trick-or-treaters should cross only at street corners, never between parked cars, and always look in all directions before crossing the street. Children may need to remove their masks to help them see before crossing the street.
• Do not go inside anyone’s home – wait on the porch at all times.
Everyone working together helps make our community a SAFE place to celebrate Halloween. Have a Spooktacular night.
The first day of the annual alley cleanup in Hays has been completed.
Tree limbs and branches have been collected, along with other unwanted items in portions of city quadrants 1, 2 and 3.
Alley services will start after curbside collections are completed.
The 2015 Annual Alley Cleanup will consist of one and only one sweep through the City beginning October 26th. No set schedule has been established; however, residential curbside services will be first with residential regular alley services following. The city wide general schedule for alley services will start after curbside collections are completed. The number of employees committed to the task may vary from day to day; therefore, crews are unable to predict when they will be by a residence. City crews have a time limit per residence.
As in years past, the City WILL NOT pick up tires and hazardous waste. Tires should be disposed of at the Ellis County Landfill, and hazardous waste items should be disposed of at the Ellis County Hazardous Waste Facility. Please call 628-9460 or 628-9449 for detailed information.
The Annual Alley Cleanup Program is an opportunity for residents to discard items that would not be picked up in normal trash collection.
Waste should be placed in four separate piles in preparation of the Alley Cleanup. The piles should be organized in the following manner:
1. Tree limbs and brush (no longer than 12 feet in length or 6 inches in diameter), all yard and garden waste MUST be bagged
2. Construction and Demolition Debris, i.e., lumber, drywall, bricks, sinks, wires, etc. (please pull or bend over nails and place small quantities of concrete, bricks, and plaster in containers)
3. White Goods/Metals, i.e., guttering, siding, washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, metal swing sets, etc.
4. Municipal Waste (all other items), i.e., furniture, carpet, tv’s, computers, etc.
**TO AVOID WRONGFUL PICK UP, “TREASURED ITEMS” SHOULD BE TAGGED OR REMOVED FROM THE COLLECTION AREA**
Help make the City of Hays alleys clean and safe for all.
Alley cleanup is for City of Hays residential customers paying for refuse services.
TREE LIMB DISPOSAL REMINDER
Free disposal of tree limbs is available for City of Hays residents at the Ellis County Transfer Station, 1515 W 55th, Monday to Saturday – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For more information contact the Hays Public Works Dept. at (785) 628-7350 or email [email protected].
Ellis County will hold the official opening of the new Emergency Services Building this morning at the 1105 East 22nd location in Hays.
Work began in July 2014 on the $3.5 million project. Ellis County Emergency Medical Services, Emergency Management and Rural Fire all began moving in last week, putting all three departments in the same location for the first time.
Tuesday’s ribbon cutting will begin a 10 a.m. and feature presentations from County Commission Chairwoman Marcy McClelland, Commissioner Dean Haselhorst and others.
Ellis County residents are invited to attend. Refreshments will be available with building tours following the ribbon cutting presentation until 4 p.m.
During their Monday night meeting, the commission signed a resolution creating the Buckeye Wind PILOT Fund. Payments received for the Buckeye Wind Project from Invenergy will go to the fund allowing to county to transfer the funds to the general fund and use them as they see fit. McClelland said the county will receive $600,000 per year for 30 years. The payments are in lieu of property taxes. The wind farm began producing electricity Oct. 9.
The commission also approved the purchase of a new set of scales for the transfer station from Salina Scale for $79,045. The company will also rebuild the current scales at the landfill office for $15,900.
Commissioner also approved the Public Works Department to bid on a 2003 Sterling boom truck through Purple Wave for no more than $27,000.
WICHITA- Southwest Airlines is going to cut flights from Wichita. On April 11, Southwest will discontinue service to Dallas Love Field and Chicago Midway from Wichita Eisenhower National Airport, according to a city of Wichita press release.
