ST. LOUIS (AP) – The University of Missouri’s new chancellor says he is prepared to make the school “accountable and responsible” after an independent review faulted its response to a former swimmer’s rape claims.
Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin’s latest remarks amplify his comments when the Dowd Bennett law firm report was first released last week.
The review determined that the university fell short of federal standards for the reporting and investigation of sexual assault on campus. The report also found that administrators in Columbia should have investigated 20-year-old Sasha Menu Courey’s 2011 suicide sooner. The swimmer alleged she was sexually assaulted during her freshman year by several football players.
Menu Courey’s parents say they support the university’s efforts to strengthen its policies.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri House members have given first-round approval to legislation that seeks to prevent children and younger teens from buying electronic cigarettes and other devices.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices used to heat a liquid nicotine solution and create vapor that is inhaled.
Missouri’s legislation would prohibit sales to anyone younger than 18 years old. The bill was approved by voice vote on Tuesday and needs another affirmative vote before moving to the state Senate.
The federal Food and Drug Administration has said it plans to set marketing and product regulations for electronic cigarettes in the near future but hasn’t done so yet.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A lot more people are about to get a chance to own the Internet-connected eyewear known as Google Glass, the hottest accessory in geek fashion.
Google will sell the “Explorer” version of Glass to any U.S. resident who places an online order for the device beginning at 9 a.m. PDT April 15. The product will cost $1,500, the same price that Google Inc. has charged for Glass since sales of the device began last year.
This marks the first time that Google has made Glass available to consumers without special access. More than 10,000 models of Glass have been sold to a select group of developers, contest winners and other invitees.
The announcement about the general sale didn’t specify how many more sets of Glass will be available.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Almost four years after several teachers sued over a Missouri virtual teaching program, parties in the case are seeking a settlement.
The lawsuit was filed by teachers who started jobs with the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program, or MoVIP, in August 2009. The teachers were out of work by November of that year after the state eliminated funding for the program.
The lawsuit names the University of Missouri, the Missouri Board of Education, the state and eMints, a program based on the Missouri campus that hired the teachers.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports the teachers’ attorney, David Brown, says the dispute is mostly about whether the teachers were “at-will” employees of the university or if their contracts were for a full school year.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A southwest Missouri man has admitted that he owned hundreds of images of child pornography.
Fifty-three-year-old James Harrison of West Plains pleaded guilty Monday to receiving and distributing child pornography over the Internet.
Prosecutors say they found 474 child pornography videos and 560 images of child pornography on Harrison’s computers and digital media at his home.
The U.S. Attorney’s office says in a news release that the victims ranged in age from 3 to 13 or 14.
Harrison faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison without parole, with the possibility of 20 years, plus a fine up to $250,000. No sentencing date has been set.
In North Missouri, many people are farmers, ranchers, and livestock producers. Here, people rely on their land for their livelihood, and for recreation. But what there’s a lot of are property owners, and the same is true all around the country. Americans have a lot of pride in owning and maintaining their land, and many pieces of land go back generations as part of families, much like where I call home – Tarkio, MO.
Recently, reports from Washington indicated an attempt to undercut property owners and those who depend on their land to earn their living. Specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) led by Administrator Gina McCarthy, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, released a new proposed rule to the Clean Water Act (CWA). The proposal would make changes to the meaning of “waters of the United States.”
Prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions imposed limits on the extent of federal CWA authority; however, the EPA is trying to bypass Congress to get a stronger foothold on your property.
For example, the EPA traditionally holds jurisdiction over waters that are “navigable.” Now, the EPA claims a vastly expanded jurisdiction over broad categories of waters, which could include ponds or streams on our farmland. Put simply, EPA regulators will use their “best professional judgment” in an attempt to gain access to our country’s farmland. Their end game is to regulate all water sources under the guise of the CWA, an intrusion which will only add more unwanted bureaucracy to agriculture.
In other words, the EPA intends to employ slight-of-hand and misdirection to give itself greater control over your backyard. The pond, stream, ditch, gully, and dried up river bed that hasn’t seen water in 100 years? Yes, you guessed it – the federal government can and will regulate them if the EPA has its way.
To add insult to injury, the EPA asserts that it is not expanding any authority. Rather, it is merely clarifying terms that cattlemen, livestock producers, and farmers get so confused over. In other words, the EPA believes it has had authority over the puddles and ditches in your backyard for decades.
In reality, what we are looking at is a new federal permitting scheme that employs arbitrary, ambiguous, and confusing terms to expand the size and scope of the EPA’s authority. This act of federal aggression and abuse is a direct assault on private property rights – a land grab that will result in fewer jobs, multiple permits, higher costs, lengthy litigation, and more delay and disruption for businesses.
What it means to a property owner: if you are spraying pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides anywhere in the vicinity of a natural farm pond, you need a permit. If you use prescribed burning and residue from the fires can land on that farm pond, you need a different permit. If you cut hay near that pond and do not follow the standard to the letter, you could need a permit. And if you graze cattle near the pond, you could need a permit. In effect, you will have less time and resources to manage your operation and prepare for drought because you will be busy filling out all the new permits required by EPA.
The President has made clear that his Administration will go to any length to enact his environmental agenda. It’s no surprise, then, that faulty studies and cherry-picked science has been used to back up the EPA’s new rule.
Too much is at risk. My home state of Missouri, for example, contains over 51,000 beef producers and over 2,000,000 head of cattle alone. This industry plays a huge role in the economic viability of the Heartland, providing revenue and jobs for our rural communities and providing food for the entire country. Without a doubt, the EPA’s new rule would stifle this economic activity, reduce employment, and threaten producers.
It’s not just agriculture that the EPA has in its crosshairs, but our economy and workforce at large; any industry that relies on land use, such as home builders, manufacturers, and municipalities around the country will fall victim to the mandates of Washington bureaucrats. In bypassing Congress and without the consent of the governed, the EPA’s egregious agenda is poised to strike at the heart of economic activity and job growth.
This Administration’s aggressive expansion of federal authority under the CWA has no place in your backyard, on your farm, in your fields, and not in Missouri. The President and the EPA need to put politics aside, and to level with the American people. The EPA’s dishonest and misleading assault on jobs and property owners must be taken off the table.
Note: This article was written on April 10 for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association weekly newsletter. On Saturday, a guest column was published for the St. Joseph News-Press by the Administrator for EPA Region 7, who repeats the egregious claim that the EPA is merely trying to be helpful to farmers.
The Center for Multicultural Education at Missouri Western State University will offer free “Safe Zone Training” from 3-5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 15 in Murphy Hall, room 201.
“Safe Zone Training” is designed to help people become more effective allies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and intersex persons. Participants will learn how to be comfortable when talking about sexuality, the importance of inclusive language, creating safe spaces and how to be a supportive ally.
For more information, contact the Center for Multicultural Education at 816-271-4150 or cme@missouriwestern.edu.
Linda Cranmer is one of 155 patients in the Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) with Midland Care- Photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — It’s been about three and a half years since Linda Cranmer’s left leg was amputated a few inches below the knee.
“It was blood clots,” she said. “I was supposed to have a tumor taken out of my head, but I ended up losing my leg.”
At the time, Cranmer, then 62, was living in Scranton, a small town about 20 miles south of Topeka.
“I got to a point where things were so bad I just stayed in my room. I didn’t want to live anymore,” she said.
Then, about 18 months later, Cranmer was able to get into the PACE program, and things began to look up for her.
“PACE has been a miracle for me,” she said. “It’s made me want to live again. The people here don’t let you give up.”
PACE stands for Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, a Medicare- and Medicaid-funded managed care program for people who are 55 or older, low-income and close to being admitted to a nursing home.
Coming expansion
The program has been a relatively small player in Kansas’ efforts to help frail seniors such as Cranmer avoid expensive nursing home care but is poised to take on a much larger role.
The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services recently announced plans to broaden the state’s Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, a managed care option better known as PACE.
Since the mid-2000s, PACE has been available in eight Kansas counties. Starting next year, it will begin a planned multiyear expansion into 51 additional counties.
“This is a good thing,” said Janis DeBoer, executive director of the Kansas Area Agencies on Aging Association. “It’ll give individuals who are over (age) 55 and who are on Medicaid and Medicare a fourth choice. Depending on where they live, they can go with one of the three managed care companies in KanCare or they can go with PACE. It’ll depend on whatever plan they’re comfortable with and whichever one they think will best meet their needs.”
KanCare refers to the Gov. Sam Brownback-led initiative, now in its second year, to let three for-profit corporations — Amerigroup, UnitedHealthcare and Sunflower State Health Plan, a subsidiary of Centene — manage the state’s Medicaid programs.
The two PACE providers in Kansas — Via Christi Health of Wichita and Midland Care of Topeka — are nonprofit and rely on their own networks of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, physical therapists, social workers, case managers, in-home caregivers and drivers.
“The KanCare plans provide care coordination, but they’re not the direct service provider. They contract out for services,” said KDADS Secretary Shawn Sullivan. “PACE does care coordination as well, but it employs its own service providers. Its service network is much more tightly controlled.”
Also, he said, the PACE model relies on patients being transported to a network of adult day centers designed to keep close tabs on their health care needs. KanCare companies depend more on less-frequent in-home visits.
While PACE patients are likely to visit with a nurse one to four times a week, KanCare patients see nurses once or twice a month. PACE patients’ health care needs tend to be more complex than their KanCare counterparts.
The KanCare companies and the PACE providers are paid a capitated rate for each patient in their care. The rates vary, depending on an enrollee’s overall health care needs.
The managed care companies, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment reports, are paid about $3,200 a month for each beneficiary who’s on both Medicaid and Medicare; PACE providers receive between $2,400 and $3,100.
“Anyone who’s enrolled in KanCare and who’s Medicare- and nursing-home eligible can switch to PACE during the open enrollment period,” Sullivan said. “Or, throughout the year, they can disenroll (from KanCare) and go to PACE.”
The PACE programs, he said, “don’t get to cherry pick;” they have to take any patient who is eligible and completes the application process.
Today, only 337 of the 11,900 Kansans known to be eligible for PACE are enrolled in the program.
“There are a couple reasons for that,” said Robert Greenwood, vice president of public affairs with the National PACE Association. “The first is you have to live in one of the counties in Kansas that are designated PACE service areas. That’s the biggest factor.
“The second is that a PACE program is centered around an interdisciplinary team that’s housed at a day health center,” he said. “A team can only enroll about 150 to 180 people; after that, (PACE) has to develop another team and another site. That doesn’t happen overnight.”
Sullivan said the program’s expansion could lead to an additional 1,100 Kansans signing up for the program over the next two to three years.
“Studies show that PACE participants have improved health status, quality of life, lower mortality rates, more and better choices over how to spend their time and greater confidence in their ability to deal with life’s problems,” he said.
‘New perspective’
Historically, legislators have been reluctant to put money into the program.
“Early on, there may have been some misunderstandings on the full ramifications of PACE,” said Rep. David Crum, an Augusta Republican and chair of the Legislature’s Bob Bethell Joint Committee on Home and Community Based Services and KanCare Oversight. “But I think (KDADS) Secretary Sullivan brought some new perspective on how PACE fits in with KanCare and with our wanting to provide services in the most efficient manner when it comes to keeping people in their homes rather than a nursing home.”
Starting next year, Via Christi Health will begin expanding its Sedgwick County-based PACE program, called Via Christi HOPE, into Johnson, Miami and Franklin counties.
The program, according to a Via Christi HOPE spokesperson, has yet to set a timeline for expanding into Butler, Cowley, Harper, Kingman and Sumner counties, all in south central Kansas, or into 15 southeast Kansas counties: Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Chautauqua, Cherokee, Coffey, Crawford, Elk, Greenwood, Labette, Linn, Montgomery, Neosho, Wilson and Woodson counties.
Midland Care is expected to expand its seven-county region (Douglas, Jackson, Jefferson, Osage, Pottawatomie, Wabaunsee and Shawnee) to include Lyon, Marshall and Nemaha counties sometime in 2015. It also formed a partnership with Kansas City Hospice and Palliative Care for making PACE available in Brown, Doniphan, Atchison, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties.
“Our first expansion site to the east will probably be in Wyandotte County by July of 2015, and in Leavenworth and Atchison counties sometime in the next 24 months, depending on how the program grows,” said Midland Care Chief Executive Karen Weichert. She declined to be more specific, noting the proposed projects are still in the early stages of a federal application process that “takes anywhere from six to 12 months.”
Three-phase approach
Bluestem Communities, a Hesston-based organization that runs the Schowalter Villa and Kidron Bethel Village retirement communities in Hesston and North Newton, respectively, has been awarded the PACE contract for 20 counties in north central Kansas: Chase, Clay, Cloud, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Geary, Harvey, Jewell, Lincoln, Marion, McPherson, Mitchell, Morris, Ottawa, Reno, Republic, Rice, Riley, Saline and Washington.
“We’re planning on sort of a three-phase approach,” said James Krehbiel, chief executive at Bluestem Communities. “The first phase will be an eight-county region that will include Harvey County, Hutchison, Salina and McPherson. The second will be in Riley and Geary counties and some of the surrounding area. In the third phase will get into the more rural areas.”
The rollout, he said, may take three to four years to complete.
“This is a brand-new program for us,” Krehbiel said. “But we have a long history in the care-providing business, we’ve been working very closely with Via Christi HOPE, we’ve been visiting with other PACE programs around the country and we’ve brought in a consultant who’s worked with a lot of different PACE programs. We see this as a natural extension of what we’re already doing.”
Krehbiel said he hoped Bluestem Communities eventually will take on 240 PACE patients.
Mitzi McFatrich, executive director at Kansas Advocates for Better Care, a group that represents nursing home residents and their families, said she welcomed news of the PACE expansion.
“We’ve always been a fan of PACE programs,” she said. “They do a lot of things well.”
Ami Hyten, assistant director at the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center, said PACE has advantages and disadvantages.
“It all comes down to choice,” she said. “If you want to self-direct your care or if you already have someone you want to be your caregiver, you’re probably not going to want to go with PACE because you have to use whoever’s in their network. But if you’re OK with that, then, fine, you may want to go with PACE. It’s a good program.”
A Missouri woman was injured in a Monday crash in Andrew County
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reports a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer driven by Elizabeth A. Robertson, 27, Maryville was southbound on I-29 six miles south of Savannah in a construction zone with one lane of traffic.
The vehicle crossed the centerline, struck a 2011 Ford F350 and then the bridge rail.
Robertson was transported to Heartland Regional Medical Center. The truck driver Michael L. Bartlett, 62, St. Joseph was not injured.
The MSHP reports Robertson was properly restrained.
NWS Kansas City 
