News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Kansas law may hamper participation in survey
For more than 20 years, Kansas secondary students have taken a survey to track alcohol and drug abuse. But a new law requiring parents to give written permission to allow their children to take the survey is affecting the survey data, and those who use it say it could be more challenging to obtain funds…
Getting rid of the vestiges of racism – in health care
Missouri’s medical schools on Friday kicked off a collaborative effort to encourage minorities to enter the health care professions. Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, who served under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, helped launch the project, delivering a lecture Friday at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on the state of diversity in the health care workforce since 1965.
The rates of uninsured are falling in every state but one: Kansas
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.
Truman Med looks to be on cutting edge of cancer research
For years, Truman Medical Centers’ chemotherapy unit sat in an open room located in an un-renovated portion of its mid-1970s hospital near downtown Kansas City, Mo. Only a few feet separated each chemotherapy patient – seated in recliners next to their IV poles – and the ground-floor pharmacy sat several stories below the oncology unit….
Cannabis oil passes Kansas committee
For the first time, a Kansas House committee has approved a bill allowing some form of medical marijuana. House Bill 2282 was limited in scope to begin with, and Rep. John Wilson, the bill’s sponsor, proposed amendments to further limit it Monday in the hopes of assuaging concerns about opening the state to legal pot abuse. The effort worked, and Wilson’s bill passed the House Health and Human Services Committee verbally with only a few “nay” votes. Wilson said the somewhat anti-climactic vote was appropriate.
Kansas City In Running For National Health Award
Kansas City, Mo., officials said Friday that the city is one of 15 finalists nationwide for the Culture of Health prize conferred annually by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a highly regarded health foundation based in Princeton, N.J.
Big jumps in healthcare.gov sign-up for Kansas and Missouri
Obamacare enrollment grew by nearly 70 percent in both Kansas and Missouri during the most recent sign-up period, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A different take on cannabis oil
Rep. Kevin Jones interrupted Tuesday’s hearing on House Bill 2282 to question a woman sitting in the front row of the gallery holding her young son. “I hope it’s not too personal,” Jones said. “But did he just have a seizure?” Kiley Klug, a resident of the small central Kansas town of Odin, nodded. Jones,…
Braving a line of hundreds, in freezing temps, for free dental care
Imagine waiting in line for a day and a half just to get a tooth pulled or a cavity filled. Lots of people did just that over the weekend in Salina, where about 400 dental professionals and hundreds of other volunteers donated their time Friday and Saturday to provide free dental care to 1,400 people at the 14th Kansas Mission of Mercy.
Brownback re-election is a ‘low point,’ says Sebelius
Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius didn’t mince words when asked about the direction of Kansas politics during an event Thursday night at the Dole Institute of Politics. Making one of her first Kansas public appearances since stepping down in June as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Sebelius called the re-election of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback “a low point” in the state’s political history.