Affordable Care Act
Medicaid expansion still on table in Kansas, Missouri following elections
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….
Health care compact gains attention as campaign issue
A once-obscure effort by a group of states to get out from under federal health care regulations has become an issue in the final days of the Kansas governor’s race. On Wednesday, Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Jill Docking teamed with Republican Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger at a Wichita news conference to criticize Republican Gov. Sam…
Candidates battling for insurance post differ on big issues
The top-of-the-ticket races may be commanding the most attention in this year’s Kansas election, but significant issues also are in play in some of the down-ballot contests. The insurance commissioner’s race is one example. Like the higher-profile races, it features candidates with very different perspectives on key issues. But unlike those races, the contestants remain…
With next Obamacare enrollment period set to start, navigators share successful strategies
Meridith Berry and her team learned a valuable lesson at an event where they were encouraging Hispanics to purchase coverage through the health insurance marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act: don’t use green card stock. Berry, a family financial education specialist with the University of Missouri Extension in Trenton, Mo., said the slip-up occurred…
Kansas City-area hospitals are being fined for ‘excessive’ readmission rates
Twenty hospitals in the Kansas City area will be penalized by Medicare starting Oct. 1 for excessive readmissions, although eight of them will be hit with lower fines than in Medicare’s previous round of penalties.
Suit seeks to force feds to disclose Missouri health insurance rates
A Missouri consumers group has sued the Department of Health and Human Services over its alleged failure to disclose health insurance rates filed with the state. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in St. Louis by the Consumers Council of Missouri, comes just six weeks before the enrollment period for coverage under the Affordable…
Documentary casts light on Kansas City’s mental health care woes
The state of Kansas City’s mental health care services is dire, according to a forthcoming new documentary. Journalist and documentary filmmaker Michael Price’s Lost Minds: KC’s Mental Health Crisis focuses on the growing number of fraught confrontations between severely mentally ill people and police on Kansas City’s streets. The locally produced documentary airs Wednesday, Oct. 1, at…
Feds expect more consumer choice in health reform insurance marketplace
Consumers in Missouri and Kansas should see more companies offering coverage through the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A report issued by the department, released in advance of the open enrollment period scheduled to run from…
Olathe Medical Center opens facility for final stage of life
Olathe Medical Center officials say they have added a building block to their vision of providing cradle-to-grave care. On Wednesday, in front of a crowd of about 300 donors, employees and other well-wishers, the hospital officially opened a freestanding inpatient hospice on its land at Interstate 35 and 151st Street. “In the early 1980s, when…
Medical PACs concentrate spending on incumbents
Political action committees for medically related groups in Kansas tended to throw their money behind incumbent House members before this year’s primary — even if those members did not support all of the groups’ political initiatives. Fifteen medically related PACs raised about $253,000 and spent about $125,000 this year in the reporting period that ended…