By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Several senators on Tuesday spoke in favor of a House-passed bill that has the goal of state officials eventually taking over federally funded health care programs within its borders, including Medicare.

“I think we’re headed in a direction here where the State of Kansas can do a better job,” said Sen. Ralph Ostmeyer, a Grinnell Republican and chair of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee.
Some people seem to think the states can’t do this job, but I really believe the federal government can’t even hardly see us,” said Sen. Rob Olson, an Olathe Republican. “So I think we probably could handle this better here in this state than the federal government could.”

Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican, said she thought state officials were likely to have more success eliminating Medicare fraud and abuse than their federal counterparts.

The nine-member committee – seven Republicans, two Democrats – approved House Bill 2553 on a voice vote, with the Democrats in opposition. The measure now goes to the full Senate.

Ostmeyer said he expected Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Shawnee Republican, to “carry” the bill during Senate debate, which has yet to be scheduled.

“This is a very simple bill,” said Pilcher-Cook, who testified in favor of the measure. “It simply addresses whether the state or the federal government gets to make decisions in regard to the citizens’ health care.”

Pilcher-Cook, one of the Legislature’s most vocal critics of Obamacare, said the bill was designed to “give back the freedoms” that were lost when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.

The bill would allow Kansas to join a multi-state compact, which, in turn, would ask the federal government to let its members run the federally funded health care programs in their respective states, Medicare and Medicaid, primarily.

The member states, Pilcher-Cook said, would be free to either adhere to the federal regulations or adopt their own standards.

A state-run system, she said, would be more efficient.

Before the compact could take effect, it would have to win approval in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, which doesn’t seem likely so long as Democrats control the Senate.

“This bill doesn’t do anything in the near future,” Pilcher-Cook said.
Also testifying in support of the bill were, Reps. Brett Hildebrand, a Shawnee Republican and Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Dan Tripp, a former South Carolina legislator-turned-consultant for a national group called Competitive Governance Action.

Tripp said eight states already have passed legislation for joining a compact.

Dave Wilson, a past volunteer president with AARP Kansas, testified against the bill, calling it frivolous and scary.

“I’m surprised to hear the same people who talk about the need for smaller government say they want to take this on,” Wilson said. “The potential exists for the state having to put a whole new structure, a whole new bureaucracy, in place. The proponents say that wouldn’t have to happen, but it’s a possibility and, I think, a danger.”

Wilson said there would be little to stop legislators from using Medicare to pay for Medicaid cost overruns.

Sen. Tom Holland a Baker City Democrat voiced his opposition:

“I know how this Legislature operates, I’ve been here 12 years,” he said. “I cannot imagine, quite honestly, that we would open up our Medicare beneficiaries to the shenanigans that the Legislature might pull when it comes up against financial issues in the future. I think this a very bad bill and I will be voting no.”

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri voters could get to decide whether to boost the constitutional protections available for their cellphones.

Senators gave initial approval Tuesday to a measure that would expand Missouri’s constitutional safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

A proposal that would appear on this year’s ballot would add “electronic communications and data” to the search-and-seizure protections that currently apply to “persons, papers, homes and effects.”

The measure requires another Senate vote to go to the House.

Sponsoring Sen. Rob Schaaf says the provision would update Missouri’s 1945 constitution to reflect technological changes.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Missouri senators have endorsed legislation intended to restore a tax exemption for exercise.

A bill given initial approval Tuesday night seeks to prevent state sales taxes from being collected on dues paid to fitness centers, gymnastics and dance studies, and other similar places.

Senators said the state Department of Revenue has been demanding large tax bills from some of those businesses. But lawmakers said they didn’t intend for them to be taxed.

Missouri law charges sales tax on fees paid to places of “amusement, entertainment … recreation, games and athletic events.” The state Supreme court has interpreted that to apply to exercise and fitness clubs.

Sponsoring Sen. Bob Dixon, a Springfield Republican, said he doesn’t consider exercise to be recreation or amusement.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A powerful earthquake has struck in the Pacific off Chile’s northern region, and authorities have ordered an evacuation of coastal areas in case of a tsunami. There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage. A Tsunami warning was issued along the Latin American Pacific coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 8.0 and struck 61 miles (99 kilometers) northwest of Iquique, Chile, at 8:46 p.m. It hit in an area that has been rocked by numerous quakes over the past two weeks.

The latest tremor shook buildings in parts of the nearby nations of Bolivia and Peru.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) introduced an amendment today to protect American families from the skyrocketing energy costs and devastating job losses resulting from a burdensome carbon tax. To read the text of the amendment, click here.

U.S. Senators John Cornyn (Texas), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and John Thune (S.D.) co-sponsored Blunt’s amendment, which was filed to the unemployment insurance legislation today. In March 2013, Blunt also introduced an amendment to the FY14 budget to prevent a carbon tax.

“America’s most vulnerable families are the hardest hit by costly and burdensome energy policies like a carbon tax,” Blunt said. “Instead of burdening middle and low-income families with unaffordable home energy costs, we must take an all-of-the-above approach to encourage a more diverse, reliable, and affordable domestic energy supply.”

According to the 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, nearly 40 million American households earning less than $30,000 per year spend almost 20 percent or more of their family budget on energy costs.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), manufactures use one third of all energy consumed in the U.S. A 2013 study by NAM found that the overall impact of a carbon tax on American jobs would be staggering, with a loss of worker income equivalent to between 1.3 million and 1.5 million jobs in 2013 and between 3.8 million and 21 million by 2053.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A federal judge has officially closed the book on a New York man’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit claiming half-ownership of Facebook.

Judge Richard Arcara has granted Facebook and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s motion to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s (SEHG’-lee-uhz) lawsuit.

Last week’s ruling affirms a magistrate judge’s recommendation from a year ago saying the lawsuit should be thrown out because the contract Ceglia based it on was faked.

Ceglia is from Wellsville. He claimed he and Zuckerberg signed a 2003 software development contract that included a provision entitling him to half-ownership of Facebook in exchange for startup money for the budding company.

Facebook lawyers say the two had a contract but references to Facebook were slipped in for the lawsuit.

Ceglia awaits trial on related criminal fraud charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Mothers of children with seizures have told Missouri lawmakers that legalizing medical marijuana could help their children.

The Senate General Laws Committee heard testimony Tuesday on legislation that would allow marijuana use by patients diagnosed with debilitating medical conditions. The purchase price of such marijuana could be taxed up to 8 percent, and it could not be used near schools or some other public areas.

A group representing physicians testified in opposition because medical marijuana has not gone through clinical trials.

The Senate panel did not vote on the measure.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – A former president of a southwest Missouri bank is going to prison for defrauding the institution of $413,000 in less than one year.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 35-year-old Matthew Spillman, of Nixa, was sentenced Tuesday to two years and six months in federal prison without parole. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $180,000 to the Bank of Billings and $234,000 to its insurer.

Spillman pleaded guilty last October to bank fraud and money laundering.

Prosecutors said he used a variety of methods to take the funds between May 2011 and April 2012, when he was suspended. Among them were embezzling loan payments made by customers, and adding to customers’ loan debts and credit lines and converting the funds to his own use.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A correctional officer at a federal prison in southwest Missouri has been sentenced to six years without parole for hiring someone to kill his wife’s ex-husband.

U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson says 43-year-old Robert Jones of Springfield was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in November to using a telephone to arrange a murder for hire.

Jones was arrested that summer after giving an undercover FBI agent posing as a hit man named Chuey $1,500 to kill the man.