By Jim McLean
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — 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 largely unknown to Kansas voters. A poll taken as the race headed into its final week showed Republican Ken Selzer leading Democrat Dennis Anderson by double digits – but nearly half of voters didn’t know either candidate.

Nonetheless, some big issues are in play, including the Affordable Care Act, the controversial federal health reform law.
Selzer, a conservative, wants to see it repealed. Anderson carefully avoids endorsing the law but says he supports the goal behind it of making affordable health coverage available to millions more Americans.
“The core issue is how do we provide protection for the most people?” Anderson said, adding that using tax credits to help the uninsured purchase coverage ultimately will reduce the number of hidden charges built into insurance policies and hospital bills.

“People don’t often understand that the population that doesn’t have coverage costs us in terms of higher commercial insurance premiums or additional social programs,” Anderson said. “If they get ill and they go to a hospital and they can’t pay, who pays the bill? Well, we all do. It’s just that we’re distributing it in kind of an invisible way right now.”
Selzer, on the other hand, opposes the ACA as an unnecessary intrusion in the private marketplace. He says the federal government shouldn’t be providing subsidies to help the uninsured purchase private coverage.

“It (the reform law) essentially nationalized a program that should be in the marketplace,” Selzer said. “I am going to advocate for the repeal – and, if we fail at repeal, for changes in Obamacare.”

But, he said, regardless of what happens with the repeal effort, “We’re going to do the job that we’re required to do by law to educate and advocate for consumers and to regulate insurance companies and license agents.”

Neither Selzer nor Anderson will have a role in deciding the fate of the controversial health reform law. However, their views likely would influence aspects of the law’s implementation in Kansas, such as the extent to which the insurance department is involved in consumer education.

About 12.6 percent of Kansans – nearly 360,000 people – were uninsured prior to implementation of the ACA. Approximately 57,000 Kansans purchased ACA coverage during the first enrollment period, which ran from Oct. 1, 2013, through March 31. A second open-enrollment period begins Nov. 15 and extends through Feb. 15, 2015.

Disagreement on health compact

The candidates disagree sharply on the formation of a compact to free participating states from federal health care regulations.

Led by conservative Republicans opposed to the ACA, the Legislature and Gov. Sam Brownback approved the state’s membership in the health care compact. Since then, Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, a moderate Republican who has endorsed Anderson, and groups representing Kansas seniors have raised concerns about language in the enabling legislation that allows participating states to take control of the Medicare program within their borders.

Anderson shares Praeger’s concerns, calling the compact “a terrible idea.”

“It’s quite disconcerting when you hear the folks who passed it trying to reassure you that it (Medicare takeover) would never become reality while at the same time wishing that it did,” Anderson said.

More than 450,000 Kansas seniors are enrolled in Medicare.

In the primary, Selzer supported the compact, saying he was for “anything that brings decision-making to a more local level.”

But in recent weeks, as more people raised concerns about the Medicare issue, Selzer has sought to downplay the issue by stressing that as commissioner he would play no role in establishing it. That, he said, will be up to Congress and to members of the Kansas Legislature.

“If the multi-state compact does go forward, there will be an extensive amount of discussion in the state of Kansas before it gets implemented,” Selzer said. “And it will be a legislative issue, not an insurance commissioner issue.”

Anderson’s opposition to the compact and his support of expanding Medicaid eligibility to more low-income Kansas adults are the reasons that Praeger reached across party lines to endorse him.

“I would hate to see politics controlling the insurance department,” Praeger said, equating support of the compact and opposition to Medicaid expansion as litmus test political issues for conservatives. “I think it’s so important that we have an insurance commissioner that will be dedicated to good public policy and not use the office for political gain.”

The low-budget Anderson campaign is working to get the word out about Praeger’s endorsement, believing that it alone could be enough to convince some moderate Republicans to join Democrats in voting for him.

Consumer focus

Both Selzer and Anderson are touting their business experience on the campaign trail. Anderson heads a family company that trains insurance agents across the country and prepares them for licensure examinations. Selzer is a certified public accountant with decades of experience in the insurance industry.

Both candidates say they will take a balanced approach to regulating insurance companies while working to protect consumers. And they generally agree that tighter regulation of ACA navigators is needed.

Unlike insurance agents, navigators aren’t licensed to sell insurance products. But various organizations – including safety net clinics, county health departments and social services groups – employ them to help guide consumers through the coverage options in the online marketplace.

Navigators undergo criminal background checks and receive specialized training but are not licensed.

Selzer wants to change that.

“I think navigators ought to be licensed to operate here in the state of Kansas,” he said.

A bill that would have required navigators to be licensed and imposed restrictions on the kind of guidance they could provide consumers was passed by the Kansas Senate during the 2014 session, but it stalled in the House.

Anderson stops short of saying that navigators should pay a fee and be licensed, but he favors requiring them to be registered with the insurance department.

“That way if you find that they are acting inappropriately, you have some capacity to remove them,” Anderson said. “After all, they are people who are interacting with consumers and pointing them in a particular direction.”

 Jim McLean is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Many Kansas students participated in a statewide effort to “break” the state’s online mathematics and reading testing system to find its technical limits and uncover any problems.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports  the effort came after the state encountered several problems administering the tests last year. Officials said a mix of technical issues and cyberattacks were to blame in paralyzing state testing for a month.

Last year’s exams were a pilot run, but test results this spring will count toward a school’s accreditation. Education officials want to make sure that testing process goes as smoothly as possible.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of students across Kansas logged onto the system. Marianne Perie of the University of Kansas says that the practice run helped identify a caching problem that temporarily stopped the program in the morning.

MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices have their first chance this week to decide whether they have the appetite for another major fight over President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Some of the same players who mounted the first failed effort to kill the law altogether now want the justices to rule that subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their premiums under the law are illegal.

The challengers are appealing a unanimous lower court ruling that upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states. The appeal is on the agenda for the justices’ private conference on Friday, and word of their action could come as early as Monday.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A majority of the 22,394 voters who will be unable to cast a legal ballot this election in Kansas because of the state’s proof-of-citizenship law claim no political affiliation.

The Secretary of State’s office said Wednesday that unaffiliated voters account for 57 percent, or 12,822 people, whose registrations were put on hold.

Another 5,069 registrations still in limbo come from Republican voters, comprising 22 percent of voters on the list.

The registrations of 4,070 Democrats are also on hold, accounting for 18 percent of suspended voters.

Voter registrations from 383 Libertarians also are in limbo.

The law that took effect in January requires new voter registrants to provide a birth certificate, passport or other document proving their U.S. citizenship. Any provisional ballots cast by suspended voters would not be counted.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay is asking the Justice Department to widen its civil rights investigation in the St. Louis area to include municipal courts.

The Justice Department began an investigation of Ferguson and St. Louis County police following the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old, by Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson, who is white. The shooting exposed an undercurrent of racial unrest in Ferguson and other nearby suburbs in mostly black communities of north St. Louis County.

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford says it’s recalling about 205,000 SUVs in cold-weather states and parts of Canada to fix gas tanks that can rust, leak and cause a fire.

The recall affects Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX vehicles from the 2007 and 2008 model years.

The company says it traced the problem to rust under some mounting brackets. Ford says it knows of one fire due to the problem, but no crashes or injuries.

The SUVs are being recalled in 21 states and Washington, D.C., plus six Canadian provinces.

Dealers will inspect the fuel tanks and repair or replace them at no cost to owners.

DAVID KOENIG, AP Airlines Writer

DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines and US Airways will combine their frequent flier programs early next year and, for now, will continue to base free flights on how many miles customers fly.

Delta and United, on the other hand, plan to base awards on how much customers spend. That helps travelers who buy expensive first-class and business-class tickets.

Executives of American Airlines Group Inc. said Tuesday that they want to deal with the mechanics of combining two big programs before addressing such a major change.

The combined program will have about 100 million members. There will be three levels of elite customers, like in American’s AAdvantage plan, and not four levels, as in US Airways’ Dividend Miles.

American and US Airways merged last December to form American Airlines Group Inc.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A new Ferguson community group is pledging to work across racial and economic lines to help the community move forward following Michael Brown’s police shooting death.

KWMU-FM reports that the group One Ferguson debuted Tuesday night during the public comment portion of the Ferguson City Council meeting. Its members include some of the same young protesters who’ve been among the city’s biggest critics.