NEW YORK (AP) — A government report says the smoking rate for U.S. adults dipped below 18 percent for the first time last year.
That’s still about the same rate found in 2012, and translates to about 42 million smokers.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the findings Wednesday. Smoking was more common in certain groups, like the poor, less educated, and gays and bisexuals.
The nation’s smoking rate had stalled at around 20 to 21 percent, until it started dropping a bit a few years ago. In last year’s survey, 17.8 percent of adults described themselves as smokers.
Smoking is the nation’s leading cause of preventable illness. It’s responsible for the majority of lung cancer deaths and is a factor in heart attacks and a variety of other illnesses.
Jason Wesco, chief executive of the Health Partnership Clinic in Olathe.- KHI photo
By Bryan Thompson, KPR
TOPEKA — Even with the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans still lack health insurance. For them, safety net clinics are a lifeline. These clinics provide primary care for anyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Today there are federally funded clinics in 21 Kansas counties, but there soon could be more.
At least six organizations in Kansas are asking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for grants to open new clinics. GraceMed, in Wichita, is asking for $650,000 for a new clinic on the south side of the city. CEO David Sanford said that region of the state’s largest city is underserved.
“Areas kind of in the southern part of the county have very few if any doctor’s offices or dental offices,” Sanford said.
The Greater Wichita YMCA has given GraceMed a little more than four acres of land on the Y’s south campus to build the clinic.
“Medical, dental, pharmacy, vision services, integrated behavioral health. At full capacity, we anticipate serving about 17,000 unduplicated patients per year,” Sanford said.
That would increase the number of patients GraceMed serves at its eight current locations by half.
The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas also is seeking a $650,000 grant. The Pittsburg-based organization serves 40,000 patients through clinics in six counties. But Douglas Stuckey, its chief financial officer, said part of the region remains underserved.
“And if you look at the ratio of underserved people, we’ve basically got a doughnut —and right in the middle is Labette County and Parsons,” Stuckey said.
About 1,000 patients from the Parsons area seek care at his organization’s clinics in Pittsburg and Coffeyville — a distance of about 40 miles either way — and that’s just a fraction of the unmet need, according to Stuckey.
“And if they don’t have transportation to get to Pittsburg or Coffeyville, they either go without, or there is a couple small, free clinics in Parsons, but they’re not open all the time,” he said.
He estimates a new clinic in Parsons would provide health care to nearly 5,000 uninsured and low-income people a year.
The nonprofit organization that runs clinics in Olathe and Paola also is seeking expansion money. The Health Partnership Clinic wants to establish a new clinic in an abandoned Wal-Mart store in Ottawa. The entire $650,000 federal grant would go for operational costs.
CEO Jason Wesco said most low-income residents in Franklin County appear to be forgoing health care, in part because the state hasn’t expanded Medicaid eligibility.
“We have patients who both earn too much money for Medicaid, which is very restrictive in Kansas, and they’re too poor to apply for the health insurance marketplace,” Wesco said. “The only way that we can meaningfully expand primary care services like we provide is new access point grants.”
The grants are funded by the Affordable Care Act, but there’s only enough money to fund about 150 of the 800 to 900 applications nationwide. Wesco had hoped Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would help give the Ottawa application a competitive edge. But Roberts declined to provide a letter of support because he opposes the health care reform law.
“They favored abolition of the Affordable Care Act and could not support our efforts,” Wesco said. “Clearly, we’re disappointed to hear that, because this is really our only way to get his constituents — many of which don’t have insurance — access to really high-quality care.”
The current round of grant applications is seen as particularly important because there may be less — perhaps even no — money for clinic expansions in the future. That’s because the Republicans who will control Congress next year are intent on repealing funding for parts of the health reform law, if not the entire law.
That means Wesco and the other Kansas clinic directors seeking grants have several anxious months ahead of them. Decisions about which grants will be funded aren’t expected until May.
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
PARSONS- A Kansas man died in an accident just after 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Neosho County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1999 Nissan Quest driven by James Merrill, 51, Parsons, was traveling south bound on U.S. 59 a mile north of Parsons.
The vehicle went left of center and drove on the northbound gravel shoulder.
The driver over corrected traveling back across both lanes. The vehicle entered the southbound ditch rolling several times ejecting the driver.
Merrill was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Frontier Forensics.
PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — Pittsburg city commissioners have approved an ordinance annexing 130 acres of land near the city’s outskirts at the request of a casino development group that wants access to city services.
The Crawford County Planning and Zoning Commission and the Crawford County Commission last week approved similar measures at the request of Southeast Kansas Casino Group.
The Joplin Globe reports the developers want to build a casino at the junction of U.S. highways 69 and 400 just southeast of Pittsburg. An attorney representing the landowners and developers says he anticipates the group will submit an application to the state Lottery Commission by the Dec. 19 deadline.
Two other groups also have indicated they will apply to build and run a state-owned casino in the southeast part of the state.
WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s no free lunch — or breakfast or dinner — for President Barack Obama on Thanksgiving day. Or any other day for that matter.
He has to dig into his pocket to pay for his holiday feast of turkey, ham, two kinds of stuffing, sweet and regular potatoes, and six different kinds of pie. It’s a longstanding practice that presidents pay for meals for themselves, their families and personal guests.
Obama also pays for other basics — everything from toothpaste to dry-cleaning.
Gary Walters, who was chief White House usher for many years, says the payment rule dates to 1800 when the White House was first occupied by President John Adams and there was no staff. Presidents brought staff with them and paid for everything.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A foster dad has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for leaving a 10-month-old girl inside a sweltering car outside of his house while he and his partner smoked marijuana.
The Wichita Eagle reports that Seth Jackson entered the plea Wednesday.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett says Jackson went to a drug dealer’s house July 24 before picking up the girl from a baby sitter. After arriving home, he went inside with a 5-year-old child, but left the baby in the vehicle.
It was around 90 degrees outside, and police say the girl was inside the car with the windows up for more than two hours. An autopsy showed she died of hyperthermia due to heat exposure.
JUNCTION CITY- The Ron and Becky Bramlage family were killed in a plane crash in Florida on June 7, 2012 as they were returning to Junction City from a vacation in the Bahamas.
The National Transportation Safety Board has released their final report on the plane crash that claimed the lives of the six family members, including their four children, Brandon, Boston, Beau, and Roxanne.
The just released probable cause report by the NTSB determined the accident to be “The failure of the pilot to maintain control of the airplane while climbing to cruise altitude in instrument meterological conditions following disconnect of the autopilot. The reason for the autopilot disconnect could not be determined during post accident testing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s lack of experience in high-performance, turbo-propeller airplanes and in Instrument meteorological conditions.”
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The reward has grown to $7,000 for information leading to an arrest in a drive-by shooting that killed a 10-year-old girl in Kansas City, Kansas.
Machole J. Stewart died Oct. 26 while she was inside a home that was sprayed by bullets from a passing vehicle. No one else inside the home was hurt.
Her death came a little more than a week after a 6-year-old Angel Marie Hooper was shot to death at a convenience store in Kansas City, Missouri. Two men have been charged in Angel’s killing.
The Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers says that the reward grew after an anonymous donor offered $5,000 for information.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has revised its lawsuit over gay marriage in Kansas to raise new claims that the state is refusing to recognize the unions.
On Friday, the ACLU filed an amended complaint adding three sets of plaintiffs and three defendants. They’re seeking to force the state to recognize the marriages for spousal health insurance benefits or driver’s license name changes.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately return a phone message.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month blocked Kansas from enforcing its ban on same-sex marriages while the lawsuit proceeds in the federal courts. The ACLU sued over the denial of marriage licenses to lesbian couples in two counties. Same-sex couples in Kansas have since been marrying in some but not all of the state’s 105 counties.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A former manager of Jayhawk Federal Credit Union has been sentenced to three years of probation for embezzling from the Lawrence institution.
Forty-three-year-old Karolyn J. Stattelman, of Topeka, also was ordered Tuesday to pay more than $173,600 in restitution.
Federal prosecutors say Stattelman manipulated credit union accounts for money orders, share drafts, ATM and returned checks in order to conceal the thefts.
Teller Christi Marie Hout also was allowed to write checks on her personal and business accounts when she did not have sufficient funds to cover them. Hout pleaded guilty to one count of theft of credit union funds. She is set for sentencing Jan. 7.
MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
