TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas legislative committee plans next week to review a proposed ban on an abortion procedure targeted by a national group and described as dismembering a fetus.

Chairman Steve Brunk said the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee will have a hearing Monday on a bill imposing the ban. The measure passed the Senate last month.

The bill outlaws the dilation and evacuation procedure and redefines it as “dismemberment abortion.” Doctors could not use clamps, forceps or similar instruments on a fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces.

Abortion rights supporters say it’s sometimes the safest procedure for a woman.

The National Right to Life Committee drafted the measure as model legislation for states.

The procedure is used in about 8 percent of Kansas abortions.

By JIM MCLEAN
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.

Neither Kansas nor Missouri established its own online insurance marketplaces, forcing consumers in both states to use the healthcare.gov site created by the federal government.

The latest legal challenge to the ACA hinges on whether Congress intentionally limited subsidies to state-based marketplaces to encourage states to set them up. Defenders of the law insist that Congress intended no such restriction.

The court is expected to hand down its decision in late June.

That could make for an anxious three months for the hundreds of thousands of consumers in Kansas and Missouri whose health coverage could be at risk if the court invalidates the tax credits they used to purchase it.

In Kansas, 80 percent of the 96,226 people who purchased health insurance in the ACA’s federal marketplace received tax credits to offset a portion of their premiums, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those tax credits averaged $214 a month.

In Missouri, 88 percent of the 253,969 people who purchased ACA coverage qualified for tax credits, which averaged $284 a month, according to HHS.

If the court invalidates the credits, consumer advocates in both states say many of the people who purchased insurance on the exchanges no longer would be able to afford it.

“They would immediately lose that subsidy and would have to decide if they could come up with the money to pay the full price of their insurance policy,” says Sheldon Weisgrau, director of the Health Reform Resource Project in Kansas.

If that happens, Weisgrau says, older, sicker people would be the most likely to do whatever they can to hang onto their policies. Younger, healthier people would be more likely to risk going without coverage, he says.

Over time, those changes would drive up premiums for everyone.

“It will really create a lot of damage to the whole insurance market,” Weisgrau says.

An analysis by the Missouri Hospital Association indicates the loss of federal subsidies would trigger a 4.3 percent increase premiums across the state. Premiums in Kansas would increase by almost 3.3 percent, according to the analysis.

The Associated Press reported that Missouri Sen. Bob Onder, a Republican of Lake St. Louis, presented a bill to a committee Wednesday barring insurers in Missouri from accepting subsidies from the federal government. Onder said congressional action would be needed to fully dismantle the Affordable Care Act but the bill would be a first step.

Linda Sheppard, a senior analyst at the Kansas Health Institute and director of health care policy and analysis at the Kansas Insurance Department when Congress passed the ACA, helped direct early discussions about how to implement the law in Kansas and whether to create a state marketplace. At the time, Sheppard says, there was no discussion about the possibility that Kansas consumers wouldn’t be eligible for federal subsidies if the state failed to create its own marketplace.

“It never came up,” she says. “There was never a hint of that.”

Editor’s note: KHI News Service is affiliated with but editorially independent of the Kansas Health Institute.

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

LANSING- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 5:30 p.m. on Friday in Leavenworth County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2012 Suzuki Motorcycle driven by Jacob Tanner 35, Leavenworth, was southbound on U.S. 73 just south of Mary in the city of Lansing.

The motorcycle rear-ended a 2010 Chrysler 300 driven by Shannon Cooper, 40, Kansas City.

Tanner was transported to Overland Park Regional Medical Center. The KHP reported he was wearing a helmet.
Cooper was not injured and fled the scene according to the KHP.

JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) — A coalition of states suing to stop President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration alleges the government misled a judge about not implementing part of the plan before the judge temporarily halted it.

The allegation was made in court documents filed Thursday in response to a Justice Department filing that acknowledged some deportation reprieves were granted before the Feb. 16 injunction.

Government attorneys had previously said officials wouldn’t accept such requests under Obama’s action until Feb. 18. However, the DOJ claims in its court filing Tuesday that the 100,000 immigrants who were granted three-year reprieves and work permits were already eligible under a previous immigration plan from 2012.

The states are asking the judge for access to more information about the actions.

 

MANHATTAN — May will likely mark the start of the five-year construction to build the National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, or NBAF according to a release from Kansas State University.

On March 3, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that included the remaining $300 million to complete the $1.25 billion premier animal disease research laboratory. Construction on the lab’s central utility plant has been under way since 2013 and is about 90 percent complete.

The federal research lab will be on the northeast edge of Kansas State University’s Manhattan campus.

“NBAF is needed to confront foreign animal diseases that threaten America’s agricultural economy and food supply,” said Ron Trewyn, the university’s NBAF liaison. “Building this lab is long overdue.”

Construction of the lab will begin in May, with construction efforts projected to peak in 2018 and 2019 when more than 875 construction personnel will be on site each day for several weeks. Lab construction is slated for completion in December 2020, but will likely take two years or more after that before NBAF is fully operational.

Once lab operations begin, the research facility will have about 400 employees and generate $3.5 billion into the Kansas economy in the first 20 years of operation.

NBAF will be the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s foremost animal disease research facility. The biosafety level-3 and 4 laboratory will research emerging, high-consequence livestock diseases that threaten animal and human health.

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — New Kansas Department of Education figures show that public schools would lose a total of $51 million in state aid before the end of June under an education funding plan from Republican leaders.

Figures released Friday show that the total reduction would be 1.5 percent of the general aid districts had been set to receive.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback already has announced cuts of $28 million in aid to public schools to help balance the budget, and they take effect Saturday.

Department of Education figures released Friday show that the GOP leaders’ plan for overhauling education funding would trim an additional $23 million.

However, GOP leaders have noted that total spending still would remain significantly above the amount for the 2013-14 school year. They released their plan Thursday.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge has refused to toss out terrorism-related charges against the man accused of plotting a suicide bomb attack at a Kansas airport.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot rejected Friday all arguments made by defense attorneys for Terry Loewen. The former avionics technician was arrested in December 2013 after authorities said he tried to bring a van filled with inert explosives onto the tarmac at Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita.

The judge says defense claims of entrapment and outrageous government conduct cannot be determined before the trial. Loewen was arrested after a sting operation in which undercover FBI agents posed as co-conspirators and gave him the fake explosives.

Belot also refused to suppress evidence taken from the van due to a clerical error in the date of the search warrant.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City police are investigating after a 2-year-old girl was found dead from burn-related injuries at an apartment.

Officers say they got involved after an ambulance was dispatched to the residence Thursday afternoon. They found the girl already dead, and a 4-year-old boy with burns to his chest and back.

The boy was taken to a hospital, where he is in serious condition.

Police say there’s evidence a fire occurred inside the apartment at least 12 hours before the ambulance was called.

Authorities say the children’s mother, a 9-year-old child and an 11-month-old baby also were inside, but had no obvious injuries.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators are waiting for a detailed analysis of how a plan from Republican leaders to overhaul education funding would affect individual school districts.

The Kansas Department of Education was expected to release the analysis Friday. The department regularly reviews school finance legislation and analyzes its effects.

The GOP plan was outlined Thursday and would replace the state’s existing per-student formula for distributing its aid to 286 school districts.

The measure incorporates Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposal to give districts “block grants” based on their current aid until lawmakers can write a new formula.

Republican leaders said the plan increases total aid to schools. Figures from legislative researchers show that most of the increase over the next two school years would cover rising state contributions to teacher pensions.