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Health care hopes dashed
By: Bob Sigman, Opinion Page Editor
Kansans will have to wait until next year for a better health care plan, if then. It was not supposed to be this way. This was the year the Kansas Legislature was poised to bring genuine reforms to Kansas’ medical and health insurance system. Advocates of change were left wanting in a session that became bogged down over whether to allow construction of coal-fired electric plants in western Kansas.
This is odd because the Legislature itself launched a major effort last year to make health care more accessible and affordable to Kansans, including the poor.
A bit of background: The Legislature, spurred by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, created an agency called the Kansas Health Policy Authority in 2005. Legislators wanted a single entity to, among other services, provide information and guidance in this costly, complex part of state government.
Ideally, the new organization would be driven by facts, not politics.
Last year, the Legislature enacted a law that required the KHPA to develop a health care agenda for its session this year.
The authority complied. It conducted a “listening tour” across the state in the summer, seeking views of how Kansas’ health care could be upgraded. In November, the KHPA forwarded 21 recommendations to the Legislature and to Sebelius.
Know what happened?
An analysis by KHPA shows the Legislature appropriated money for only one of those recommendations, $550,000 for physical fitness and nutrition programs in schools. That is helpful but falls far short of meeting health care challenges in Kansas.
Legislators approved a few more KHPA suggestions but did not fund them. That is window dressing, making it appear the Legislature accomplished something when it did not back the action with funding. Other recommendations were slated for study. That is often used as a dodge to avoid enacting laws.
Not only did the Legislature fail to act on this year’s KHPA proposals. In an unbelievable turnaround, legislators dropped an urgently needed initiative they approved unanimously last year.
In 2007, the Legislature established insurance premium assistance for 24,000 low-income Kansans, phased in over four years. That was seen as a down payment toward eventual coverage of some 290,000 uninsureds in Kansas.
But this year there was a change of heart. Legislators turned down funding for it because they were apprehensive over the ultimate cost of the program.
The Legislature refused to follow a KHPA suggestion that would not have cost the state a cent. That was a statewide ban on smoking in public places. Indeed, it would have saved large sums, according to one of its most ardent supporters, Sen. David Wysong, R-Mission Hills.
Wysong has said Kansas government spends $1 billion a year on tobacco-related diseases and another $200 million in Medicaid costs on the same illnesses.
The Legislature also turned down a KHPA recommendation to increase tobacco taxes, which would have raised $70 million a year for improved health care.
The Legislature’s performance drew the ire of many individuals and groups who are familiar with the health care needs of Kansas. One of them, the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition, spoke out in recent days.
Corrie L. Edwards, executive director of the nonprofit organization, said this about the abandoned premium assistance project:
“Few taxpayers know that the citizens of Kansas paid about a million dollars in design costs for this program; a program that will now be delegated to the legislative scrap heap, another indication of benign neglect towards the poorest of the poor Kansans.”
Edwards contended that most Kansans agree the health care program is an “expensive, bureaucratic mess.” She added:
“But one thing is certain; Kansas cannot sustain this structurally flawed system for many more years. Getting a handle on health care costs, quality of services and access to care is the key to preserving a competitive edge for Kansas employers and employees.”
The Legislature did fund a couple of proposals outside the KHPA agenda. It allocated $460,000 to expand the eligibility of pregnant Medicaid recipients and $2.5 million for so-called safety net clinics.
Where do we go from this low point?
That is what members of the Kansas Health Policy Authority board will be asking themselves at a meeting today and Thursday in Lawrence.
Another statewide tour is being planned to report on the results of the 2008 Legislature and obtain more information from Kansans on a health care system badly in need of repairs.
So the KHPA is renewing its efforts for next year.
The people of Kansas could help. They could, and should, let candidates for the Legislature know about their medical needs during the upcoming election campaigns.
Contact Bob Sigman at 385-6034 or e-mail bsigman@sunpublications.com.
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This is odd because the Legislature itself launched a major effort last year to make health care more accessible and affordable to Kansans, including the poor.
A bit of background: The Legislature, spurred by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, created an agency called the Kansas Health Policy Authority in 2005. Legislators wanted a single entity to, among other services, provide information and guidance in this costly, complex part of state government.
Ideally, the new organization would be driven by facts, not politics.
Last year, the Legislature enacted a law that required the KHPA to develop a health care agenda for its session this year.
The authority complied. It conducted a “listening tour” across the state in the summer, seeking views of how Kansas’ health care could be upgraded. In November, the KHPA forwarded 21 recommendations to the Legislature and to Sebelius.
Know what happened?
An analysis by KHPA shows the Legislature appropriated money for only one of those recommendations, $550,000 for physical fitness and nutrition programs in schools. That is helpful but falls far short of meeting health care challenges in Kansas.
Legislators approved a few more KHPA suggestions but did not fund them. That is window dressing, making it appear the Legislature accomplished something when it did not back the action with funding. Other recommendations were slated for study. That is often used as a dodge to avoid enacting laws.
Not only did the Legislature fail to act on this year’s KHPA proposals. In an unbelievable turnaround, legislators dropped an urgently needed initiative they approved unanimously last year.
In 2007, the Legislature established insurance premium assistance for 24,000 low-income Kansans, phased in over four years. That was seen as a down payment toward eventual coverage of some 290,000 uninsureds in Kansas.
But this year there was a change of heart. Legislators turned down funding for it because they were apprehensive over the ultimate cost of the program.
The Legislature refused to follow a KHPA suggestion that would not have cost the state a cent. That was a statewide ban on smoking in public places. Indeed, it would have saved large sums, according to one of its most ardent supporters, Sen. David Wysong, R-Mission Hills.
Wysong has said Kansas government spends $1 billion a year on tobacco-related diseases and another $200 million in Medicaid costs on the same illnesses.
The Legislature also turned down a KHPA recommendation to increase tobacco taxes, which would have raised $70 million a year for improved health care.
The Legislature’s performance drew the ire of many individuals and groups who are familiar with the health care needs of Kansas. One of them, the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition, spoke out in recent days.
Corrie L. Edwards, executive director of the nonprofit organization, said this about the abandoned premium assistance project:
“Few taxpayers know that the citizens of Kansas paid about a million dollars in design costs for this program; a program that will now be delegated to the legislative scrap heap, another indication of benign neglect towards the poorest of the poor Kansans.”
Edwards contended that most Kansans agree the health care program is an “expensive, bureaucratic mess.” She added:
“But one thing is certain; Kansas cannot sustain this structurally flawed system for many more years. Getting a handle on health care costs, quality of services and access to care is the key to preserving a competitive edge for Kansas employers and employees.”
The Legislature did fund a couple of proposals outside the KHPA agenda. It allocated $460,000 to expand the eligibility of pregnant Medicaid recipients and $2.5 million for so-called safety net clinics.
Where do we go from this low point?
That is what members of the Kansas Health Policy Authority board will be asking themselves at a meeting today and Thursday in Lawrence.
Another statewide tour is being planned to report on the results of the 2008 Legislature and obtain more information from Kansans on a health care system badly in need of repairs.
So the KHPA is renewing its efforts for next year.
The people of Kansas could help. They could, and should, let candidates for the Legislature know about their medical needs during the upcoming election campaigns.
Contact Bob Sigman at 385-6034 or e-mail bsigman@sunpublications.com.