KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities have identified the body found near a Kansas City high school as that of a woman who was reported missing earlier this week.
The family of Angela R. Cameron reported her missing Wednesday after telling police that she left her home Saturday following an argument. Cameron’s family said she was last seen walking toward Park Hill High School.
Kansas City police found a body at the school on Wednesday evening. The Kansas City Star says although police had been investigating the death as suspicious, they announced Thursday that there appeared to be no foul play involved.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri lawmaker wants to ban recipients of a federal food assistance program from using those benefits to buy energy drinks.
Democratic state Rep. Keith English of Florissant filed legislation recently to prevent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds from buying the drinks.
Eligible low-income families receive monthly assistance to buy food through the program, which formerly was known as food stamps.
Recipients of the program still could buy coffee under the legislation.
The measure requires Missouri to request federal authorization if necessary to implement the ban on energy drinks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government says it is fining Honda $70 million for not reporting to safety regulators more than 1,700 complaints that its vehicles caused deaths and injuries, and for not reporting warranty claims. It’s the largest civil penalty the agency has levied against an automaker.
Honda disclosed the reporting failure in November, admitting that company officials had waited three years after finding out about the reporting failure before making the disclosure to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government won’t tolerate automakers withholding safety information.
He said regulators had shared information about the case with the Justice Department. The private Center for Auto Safety has called for a criminal investigation into the case.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) today took another step forward in his work to advance American agriculture when he was selected to chair the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Roberts makes history becoming the first member of Congress to hold the top Agriculture post in both the U.S. House of Representatives and now in the U.S. Senate.
“I am honored to work for America’s farmers and ranchers,” Roberts said. “I am proud to bring Kansas leadership to the Committee. I look forward to an aggressive schedule with hearings providing much needed oversight of our farm programs, school meals, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency. I am humbled to serve as chairman and will continue to be a champion for rural Kansas.
“Production agriculture must rise to face a daunting challenge: feeding a growing and hungry global population. I will work to see that the federal government is an ally, not an adversary, in this purpose. I will fight to ensure farmers and ranchers have the tools they need to advance American agriculture. I will fight barriers to trade opportunities and regulations that threaten our producers’ competitiveness. And I will continue my work to maintain the security of our food supply and ensure science based regulations govern our food and agriculture sectors.
“I welcome the addition of new Senators to the committee including Ben Sasse (R-Neb), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). I also look forward to working with Senator Stabenow (D-Mich.) as the Committee’s ranking member. We have a history of working together on the Agriculture and Finance Committees, and I know we will again make a great team for American Agriculture.”
Since the current committee structure was adopted, Roberts is the first in history to chair both the Senate Agriculture Committee and the House Agriculture Committee. Roberts also becomes the first in history to chair and serve as the ranking member for both Agriculture Committees.
Roberts’ priorities will include oversight of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs and policies and further hearings on Farm Bill implementation.
The Committee will debate reauthorization of laws dealing with commodity trading, child nutrition, school meal programs and grain inspection.
Roberts will continue to ask tough questions of the Environmental Protection Agency regarding detrimental regulations affecting farmers and ranchers, including duplicative pesticide permitting under FIFRA and the proposed change to the Waters of the U.S. definitions.
He will also conduct greater oversight of the enforcement and implementation of Dodd-Frank at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
As the House Agriculture Committee Chairman from 1995-1997, then Congressman Roberts led the reform of outdated federal farm policies. He also reformed the federal food stamp program, reducing waste, fraud and abuse. His advocacy for farmers and ranchers continued in the Senate as a key member of the Senate Agriculture Committee since 1997. In 2000, he wrote sweeping reforms to the federal crop insurance program. He also has called for a more aggressive U.S. trade policy and has fought to regain access to overseas markets for U.S. beef exports.
From 2011-2013, Senator Roberts was the Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. In 2012, with then Chairwoman Stabenow, Roberts passed a Farm Bill through the Committee which was later approved by the full Senate. The full House did not consider the Farm Bill requiring a one-year extension of the 2008 bill. Roberts was a critic of the CFTC’s implementation of Dodd-Frank leading up to and following the collapse of MF Global and Peregrine Financial.
Roberts continues a strong tradition of Kansas leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Prior to Senator Roberts, the last Kansan to hold the ranking member post of the Senate Agriculture Committee was U.S. Senator Robert J. Dole (R-KS) who served in that capacity from 1975-78. Prior to that, U.S. Senator Arthur Capper (R-KS) served as ranking member from 1943 to 1947, prior to chairing the Committee from 1947 to 1949. Senator James Lane (R-KS) was the first Kansan to serve as chairman in 1863.
In addition to the top Republican spot on Agriculture, Roberts will continue his work in behalf of Kansas as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, the Rules Committee and the Ethics Committee.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander is asking lawmakers to cut dozens of filing fees to help the state attract new businesses.
On Thursday, Kander announced the fee cut as part of his agenda for the 2015 legislative session.
The measure would slash numerous fees for corporations, limited liability companies and nonprofits filing paperwork with the secretary of state.
The proposal follows the July 2014 creation of a secretary of state website that allows businesses to file almost all forms online.
Other measures backed by Kander include bills to give some members of the military more time to register to vote or request an absentee ballot.
One bill also would give emergency workers longer to request absentee ballots, which could be faxed or emailed to them.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says in a videotaped message that he wants to make community college free “for everybody who is willing to work for it.”
Obama says in the video posted on Facebook that he will announce his plan to make community college accessible to anyone during a stop Friday in Tennessee. View the video HERE
Last year, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed into law a scholarship program that provides free community and technical college tuition for two years to the state’s high school graduates. About 58,000 of the state’s roughly 62,000 seniors have applied to participate this fall.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A California apple packing plant has recalled all of its Granny Smith and Gala apple shipments from 2014 after they were linked to an outbreak of listeria in caramel apples that may have caused up to five deaths.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that Bidart Bros. of Bakersfield, California is recalling apples shipped from its Shafter, California packing facility last year, prompted by a federal investigation of 32 listeria illnesses in 11 states.
Health officials warned consumers in December to avoid prepackaged caramel apples after they were linked to the illnesses. Caramel apples are most popular around Halloween, but the commercially produced variety can have a shelf life of a month or more, and some may still be on store shelves.
TOPEKA – Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt reported in a media release he has filed suit against a New Jersey company that sent false invoices for textbooks that were never purchased or delivered to at least 317 Kansas public schools.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Schmidt asked the Shawnee County District Court to order Robert Armstrong, an individual doing business as Scholastic School Supply of Franklinville, N.J., to pay a $634,000 civil penalty for multiple violations of the Kansas False Claims Act. This company is not affiliated with Scholastic Inc., the well known children’s book publisher.
An investigation by the attorney general’s consumer protection division stemmed from multiple complaints received from school districts across Kansas that received false invoices from Scholastic School Supply between September and December 2014. None of the Kansas schools receiving invoices had actually ordered textbooks from the company. At the time the invoices were being sent to Kansas, Schmidt’s office worked with the Kansas Department of Education to notify school districts statewide of the problem before they paid the invoices.
“Falsely billing Kansas public school districts is an attempt to defraud Kansas taxpayers and a serious violation of the law,” Schmidt said. “We take seriously our responsibility to protect taxpayers from this sort of misconduct by vigorously enforcing the Kansas False Claims Act.”
In 2009, the Kansas Legislature enacted the Kansas False Claims Act, giving the attorney general authority to file suit against individuals or entities that submit false or fraudulent claims for payment to a state agency or local government. As a member of the Kansas Senate at the time, Schmidt was one of the original proponents of creating a false claims act in Kansas.
Medicaid rates reduced for primary care- photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — Starting this month Kansas primary care physicians will be paid less for seeing Medicaid patients.
The expiration of a federal incentive program in the Affordable Care Act is responsible for the reduction.
Nationally, the average fee reduction is expected to be about 43 percent, according to a recent report from the Health Policy Center of the Urban Institute.
However, in Kansas, the cut in payments likely will be much less, closer to 25 percent. The change is expected to affect about 2,500 primary care physicians in the state.
“The reductions vary from state to state,” said Stephen Zuckerman, a co-director and senior fellow at the Urban Institute.
The reductions rescind a two-year incentive package that accompanied enactment of the Affordable Care Act. The package’s pay provisions expired Dec. 31.
“Kansas’ Medicaid fees, two years ago, weren’t as low as they were in other states,” Zuckerman said. “So the payment incentives that were built in the Affordable Care Act weren’t as much for Kansas as they were for other states.
“Now that those incentives are going away,” he said, “the decrease won’t be as much either.”
A temporary change
The increases were meant to encourage primary care physicians to take on more Medicaid patients — children, frail elders, and people with disabilities, primarily — in anticipation of more of people being eligible for government-funded health care.
States that used federal funds to expand Medicaid eligibility saw big enrollment increases. Kansas is one of 16 states that have so far decided not to expand Medicaid eligibility to low-income adults, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The District of Columbia and 27 states have expanded their programs. Policymakers in seven states are currently considering expansion proposals.
From the outset, the federally funded increases were meant to be temporary.
“It was a two-year incentive contained in the ACA to increase participation in Medicaid by primary care physicians,” Jerry Slaughter, executive director at the Kansas Medical Society, wrote in an email to KHI News Service. “It, of course, was a welcome incentive for primary care docs.”
Whether the reduction leads to fewer physicians taking on fewer Medicaid patients is unclear, he said, in part because measuring the effects of the two-year “bump” in payments has been difficult.
“Whether it actually increased participation rates significantly is unknown at this time because Kansas physicians have always participated in Medicaid in very high numbers,” Slaughter said. “The increase did flow through the Medicaid MCOs (managed care companies) to the docs, as nearly all of Medicaid is now delivered through that structure. It’s hard to say whether the return to the old primary care rates will adversely affect participation rates, but it certainly won’t help.”
In Kansas, the increases coincided with lawmakers agreeing to launch KanCare, allowing three for-profit managed care companies — Amerigroup, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan and Sunflower Health Plan, a subsidiary of Centene — to manage the state’s Medicaid programs.
“We did see an increase in primary care physician utilization,” said Sara Belfry, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. “But we cannot determine if that was due to the enhanced payment or to the movement to KanCare — the better integration of care, prevention activities.”
The reductions are limited to primary care services and are not expected to affect specialists — pediatricians, for example — or care provided in hospital emergency rooms or federally certified safety net clinics.
Impact not clear
Dr. Michael Machen, a primary care physician at Bluestem Medical Clinic in Quinter for the past 29 years, said he doubted that the reductions will cause his clinic to take on fewer Medicaid patients.
“For those of us in rural America, it’s not going to affect us much,” Machen said. “We’ll continue to see Medicaid patients; we’ll just get paid less.”
Quinter, population 950, is about 50 miles west of Hays.
Bluestem Medical Clinic does not turn away Medicaid patients, Machen said.
“It’s not like we look in their wallets and say, ‘Oh, you’re on Medicaid. You’ll have to go somewhere else,’” he said. “We haven’t done that — and we wouldn’t do that — because we know these people have nowhere else to go.”
Medicaid patients, he said, account for about 10 percent of the clinic’s caseload.
Another Bluestem Medical Clinic physician, Dr. Doug Gruenbacher, is president of the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians. He said clinics in the state’s urban areas are unlikely to follow the rural clinic’s lead.
“If you’re in one of the big urban areas where there’s more than one place for people to go — like one of the safety net clinics or the emergency room — you’re a lot more likely to limit your practice to, say, 5 percent Medicaid or 10 percent, or 15 percent, or whatever,” Gruenbacher said.
Though the Kansas rate reductions will not be as deep as those in other states, they still will have an impact, he said.
“Twenty-five percent is significant,” Gruenbacher said. “It will affect your bottom line.”
In six states, according to the Urban Institute report, fee reductions are expected to top 50 percent: California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
Fifteen states — not including Kansas — have agreed to sustain rate increases using state funds, according to the report.
Jon Rosell, executive director of the Medical Society of Sedgwick County, said he’s expecting some Wichita area clinics to start taking fewer Medicaid patients.
“They continue to be in this dilemma of seeing a legitimate need for medical care and wanting to meet that need, and then finding themselves in an economic construct that, for them, isn’t sustainable,” he said. “It makes for some very challenging and very frustrating decisions when it comes to continuing to participate in the program.”
The medical society, Rosell said, would like Kansas to join the list of states that have chosen to preserve the increases.
“Enhancing the payments, two years ago, was a strategic and very appropriate thing to do,” he said. “If there was any way to maintain that, it would definitely help.”
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Eleven Kansas hospitals are among hundreds nationwide that have been penalized for having high rates of infections or patient injuries.
Medicare reimbursements at the hospitals will be reduced by 1 percent during the fiscal year that began Oct.1, 2014.
The Hutchinson News reports Medicare evaluated 51 Kansas hospitals and 40, or 78.4 percent, were not penalized.
Kansas hospitals penalized were Hutchinson Regional Medical Center, Overland Park Regional Medical Center, South Central Kansas Medical Center in Arkansas City, Sumner Regional Medical Center in Wellington, Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Miami County Medical Center in Paola, Saint John Hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita, the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Saint Luke’s South Hospital in Overland Park and Coffeyville Regional Medical Center.
