News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Hazy on hookah
Kansas legislators are trying to determine what they should do, if anything, to regulate hookah. But first, several of them have to determine exactly what hookah is.
1 year after GED changes: Kansas students lost in shuffle
The number of people who passed the GED exam in Kansas last year is the lowest it’s been in decades. And adult education centers, which for years have helped ensure that students are ready for the test, have been cut out of the process.
Hospitals Join Johnson County EMS Effort
Six area hospitals have signed on to become paying partners in a Johnson County program aimed at providing the high-quality care to patients in need of emergency services.
KC city council candidates weigh in on tech issues
How do we close the digital divide? How do we become a gigabit city? How do we attract and keep tech talent in Kansas City? These questions and more were discussed last week at KC Digital Drive’s Civic Tech Forum at Union Station. KC Digital Drive is an organization that grew out of the Mayors’…
Thousands Of Kansans, Missourians Could Lose Health Coverage If Court Erases Subsidies
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.
Balancing child safety and parental rights, in Kansas
In Kansas, when parents or guardians decline to provide their children treatment the medical community deems necessary, the state can use medical neglect statutes to compel treatment unless that treatment would run counter to religious beliefs determined to be legitimate by a judge. A bill that overwhelmingly passed the Kansas Senate could alter that.
Cerner wins $170M contract in Australia
Kansas City-based health IT giant Cerner Corp. has won a $170 million, 10-year contract to provide its medications management system to hospitals in New South Wales, Australia.
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.