CALIFORNIA (AP) – Authorities are not sure if the death of a man whose body was found in central Missouri over the weekend is suspicious, after an autopsy did not reveal a cause of death.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Kevin Hunter said Wednesday that investigators are running down some leads arising from the autopsy.

A hunter found the decomposed body Saturday in southern Moniteau County.

Hunter says the autopsy revealed the body was that of a nearly 30-year-old man and the focus now is to identify him.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reported Hunter wouldn’t say how long investigators believe the man’s body was in the field but it was so decomposed that gender could not be determined without the autopsy.

OSKALOOSA, Kan. (AP) — A northeast Kansas man will not go to trial for a fourth time for attempted murder in a case arising from a dispute with his neighbor.

Jefferson County Chief District Judge Gary Nafziger on Wednesday dismissed the charge against 69-year-old John Hayworth Jr. of Valley Falls. Hayworth’s first trial ended in a mistrial, and the next two ended in hung juries.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports  that Hayworth Jr. was charged with attempted first-degree murder in the December 2011 shooting of William Schoonover of Valley Falls. The shooting happened after a long-simmering property dispute.

Jefferson County attorney Jason Belveal said he hasn’t decided whether to appeal the dismissal.

Schoonover has filed a civil lawsuit against Hayworth and his wife.

WASHINGTON – Following the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Mo. police officer, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today spoke directly with Molly Moran, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice on the status of a federal civil rights investigation, and released the following statement:

“As we continue to grieve for Michael and his family, I’m working to make sure the federal piece of this investigation is fair, transparent, and moving forward without delay. As it proceeds, I’ll be remaining in close touch with the Department of Justice, and am reaching out personally to local elected officials and religious leaders, to keep monitoring the painful events on the ground in Ferguson.”

By Jay Hancock
Kaiser Health News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nearly one company in six in a new survey from a major employer group plans to offer health coverage that doesn’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for value and affordability.

Many thought such low-benefit “skinny plans” would be history once the health law was fully implemented this year. Instead, 16 percent of large employers in a survey released Wednesday by the National Business Group on Health said they will offer in 2015 lower-benefit coverage along with at least one health plan that does qualify under ACA standards.

The results weren’t unexpected by benefits pros, who realized last year that ACA regulations would allow skinny plans and even make them attractive for some employers. But the new survey gives one of the first looks at the number of companies that will follow through and offer them.

“It is a little higher than I would have expected but does not surprise me,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor who specializes in consumer health at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. “It would be interesting to know what sectors of the economy these employers are in.” Low-benefit plans traditionally have been offered by hotels, restaurant chains and other lower-wage industries, Jost said, “but this may be spreading.”

The survey compiled responses from 136 large employers. The large majority – 81 percent – will offer only plans that meet the health law’s tests for minimum value and affordability. The study didn’t identify which industries made up the 16 percent that will offer low-benefit plans.

“My guess is that they are probably in those industries with low-wage employees where they have historically not been attracted to taking a lot of their paycheck for coverage and wanted something smaller,” said Steve Wojcik, vice president of public policy at the National Business Group on Health.

Skinny plans are part of a two-step strategy that lets workers and employers avoid health law penalties but may not produce substantial coverage. Some skinny plans cover preventive care and nothing else – no inpatient or outpatient hospital treatment, said Edward Fensholt, a benefits lawyer with Lockton Companies, a large insurance brokerage and consulting firm.

It works like this: Employers can shield themselves from health law penalties by offering insurance that meets tests for affordability and value, regardless of whether anyone signs up. At the same time, workers can avoid the ACA’s individual penalty by enrolling in a company skinny plan, which qualifies as “minimal essential coverage” for individuals under the health law by the mere fact that it’s employer-sponsored.

In practice, employees in low-pay industries often decide that the substantial plan is too expensive even though it meets ACA standards, Fensholt said. (The ACA says coverage is affordable if the employee’s contribution is 9.5 percent of household income or less.)

So workers sign up for the skinny plans, which shield them from the individual mandate penalty (the greater of $95 or 1 percent of their income) but offer little coverage.

“Employees need to know that if they choose one of these plans, it may be cheap and may satisfy the individual mandate requirement, but it may offer little protection if they actually get sick,” Jost said.

Even so, at Las Vegas hotels and elsewhere, employees are asking for skinny plans, and employers are offering them to stay competitive, Fensholt said.

“Some of these employers are doing it because their competitors are doing it,” he said. “They don’t want to lose these employees.”

Potentially large medical bills aren’t the only disadvantage for workers at companies using the two-tier strategy. By offering an ACA-compliant plan, their employers disqualify them from getting subsidized insurance on healthcare.gov or other online exchanges – even if they don’t sign up for a company policy.

The survey also showed a continued move by large companies toward offering high-deductible, “consumer-directed” health plans and providing tools for workers to shop around for care. Consumer-directed plans, often paired with a tax-favored health savings account, feature deductibles of thousands of dollars. Deductibles are what consumers pay for care before the insurance kicks in.

Next year, 32 percent of companies surveyed intend to offer a consumer-directed plan and nothing else – “larger than I would have expected,” said Karen Marlo, a vice president at the National Business Group on Health. “We were really surprised at how much the survey over and over again pointed the finger at consumerism.”

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office says a bicyclist was killed when he was hit by a car that was trying to pass another vehicle.

Deputies say the male cyclist was killed Wednesday afternoon south of Clinton Lake near Lawrence. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

They say a car was heading west and attempting to pass another vehicle when it hit the cyclist who was riding east.

The car driver was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Deputies say they would like to speak to the other driver about the wreck.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A new report says Missouri’s unemployment rate held steady in July while the state gained more than 13,000 jobs.

Figures from the Department of Economic Development show the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.5 percent in July. That’s the same percentage as June and down slightly from its 2014 peak of 6.7 percent in March.

Missouri’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment reached 2.78 million, up 13,200 jobs compared with June. Some of the larger gains came in durable-goods manufacturing, while the leisure and hospitality industry saw declines.

Missouri’s seasonally adjusted civilian labor force of 3 million people shrank by slightly less than 1,500 in July. The labor force counts people with jobs and those who are on unemployment but looking for work.

ANDOVER, KS – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today sent letters, signed by the Kansas congressional delegation, to Secretary of the Army John McHugh and General Raymond Odierno, Army Chief of Staff, to fight potential cuts to personnel and operations at Ft. Riley and Ft. Leavenworth as a result of the Army’s planned Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Assessment (SPEA).

“We have circled the wagons and are making a very compelling and clear case to the Army that both Ft. Leavenworth and Ft. Riley are unique and tremendous assets to our national security, the Army, their communities and the state as a whole,” Roberts said. “We will fight any ill-considered cuts to operations or personnel at our Kansas posts at every opportunity.”

At issue is the Army’s planned Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Assessment (SPEA). This assessment will determine force reductions at Army installations around the country. There is a public comment period until August 25, 2014. Kansans can gohere to submit comments. SPEA Cuts would not take place until October, 2015.

Thursday, August 14, Roberts will hold a town hall meeting in Leavenworth to discuss this and other issues, followed by a town hall meeting in Junction City on Saturday, August 16. For details on the meetings, go here and here.

Senator Roberts was joined by U.S. Senator Jerry Moran, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Rep. Kevin Yoder and Rep. Mike Pompeo in sending the letters dated today, August 13, 2014.

Senator Roberts, the most senior Marine in the Congress, was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee during the last major Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) in 2005. Anticipating the 2005 BRAC, Senator Roberts worked to ensure Kansas’ military installations had what they needed to provide relevant and ready forces for the nation’s defense. Kansas was rewarded with the return of the division Headquarters of the Big Red One to Ft. Riley. Through Senator Roberts’ hard work, the intellectual center of the Army, the Command and Staff General College remained at Ft. Leavenworth in the new and improved Lewis and Clark Center.

In 2005, Roberts and a dedicated team of state and local officials demonstrated to the Department of Defense that Kansas installations not only fulfilled critical missions, but they also are enthusiastically supported by their communities and the state.

“We will continue to remind the Army of the investments it has made to Ft. Riley and Ft. Leavenworth and of the payoff we see in the soldiers we train to be mission ready for whatever national security threat we face. But just as important, we will remind them of our communities who embrace the posts and the men and women in uniform and their families,” Roberts said. “Simply put, Kansas is the best home to the Army.”

The text of the letters are pasted below, or can be found here and here.

 

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A central Missouri man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for a wrong-way, drunken driving crash that killed a woman in Cole County.

The Jefferson City News Tribune reports 29-year-old Dennis Leporin, of Columbia, had pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder and other charges. He was sentenced Wednesday.

Police said Leporin was driving without headlights in the eastbound lanes of westbound U.S. 54 when his pickup truck hit a car head-on the night of March 6, 2013. The collision killed the car’s driver, 19-year-old Camdenton resident.

Prosecutors noted in court that Leporin had a blood alcohol content of 2.5 – three times Missouri’s legal limit – when he was tested more than an hour after the crash.