By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Rural state lawmakers are pushing a plan to allow the Kansas Farm Bureau to offer health insurance coverage to members without having to comply with federal Affordable Care Act mandates in hopes that the influential agriculture group can offer a lower-cost product.

But the proposal is drawing strong criticism from Democrats and health groups because the Farm Bureau would not be required to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. The Farm Bureau also would face relatively little regulation, and critics of the bill worry that the group could lure healthy individuals away from other, more-regulated plans, making them less affordable.

The state Senate approved the bill Wednesday on a 28-11 vote , sending it to the House. The bill’s support came mostly from Republicans, who see it as an opportunity to give consumers a choice after spikes in health insurance rates that they blame on the 2010 federal health overhaul championed by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

The Kansas bill also was inspired by a long-standing law in Tennessee and new ones in Iowa and Nebraska.

“The goal has been stated many times, to increase the number of Kansans with coverage,” said state Sen. Elaine Bowers, a Concordia Republican. “Let’s allow Farm Bureau members across the state to help reach these people, who find the ACA plans unaffordable.”

The bill would allow the Kansas Farm Bureau to provide “benefit coverage” to members and their dependents to cover their health costs.

While its coverage might work like health insurance, the measure, like the Iowa law enacted last year, declares that the coverage “shall not be considered insurance.” That would effectively exempt it from federal mandates and most state insurance regulations.

Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat and Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt, a Republican, have not yet taken a public position on the legislation.

The Kansas Farm Bureau has about 100,000 members, and the Senate vote was a testament to its political clout, particularly with rural Republicans. All but one GOP senator — Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican — supported the bill.

Farm Bureau officials said they expect about 42,000 people eventually to take its coverage if the law passes and that rates will be significantly lower than plans that comply with Affordable Care Act mandates. They said their coverage would be targeted to individuals who either have no coverage now or people who are struggling to find or pay for individual coverage.

Kansas has seen the number of individual coverage plans offered through the federal ACA marketplace decline to 23 for 2019 from 42 in 2016, according to the Kansas Insurance Department. While average rate increases for 2019 were smaller than in past years, they’ve sometimes previously topped 25 percent, according to the department’s annual reports .

House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said the bill has appeal among GOP lawmakers outside rural areas because, “a lot of people look at that as a free market thing, giving people choice.”

But Democrats noted that people don’t have to be farmers or work in agriculture to join the Farm Bureau, only pay a $50 annual membership fee. Also, the bill requires only that Farm Bureau file a certified statement of its coverage plan’s reserves annually with the Kansas Insurance Department.

And they honed in on how Farm Bureau would be able to set higher rates or reject coverage for people who have pre-existing medical conditions, a feature of the Iowa law . Groups including the American Diabetes Association, the Cancer Action Network and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society have opposed the bill for that reason.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, proposed an amendment to require the Farm Bureau’s plan to cover pre-existing conditions. But it was voted down, 24-15 , with Republicans arguing that such a requirement would eliminate the flexibility Farm Bureau needs to offer an affordable product.

“Consumers with pre-existing conditions will almost certainly surely be turned away or offered excessive prices,” said Sen. Tom Hawk, a Democrat from Manhattan, where the Kansas Farm Bureau has its headquarters.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been charged with infecting a woman with HIV and then offering her money to not cooperate with law enforcement.

Charging documents say 36-year-old Marcus Price didn’t tell a woman he had tested positive for HIV before having unprotected sex with her last year in Springfield.

He was charged under a state law criminalizing HIV exposure that dates back to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The charge carries a possible life sentence, and lawmakers have been under pressure to rewrite it amid complaints that it’s outdated. Price also faces a witness tampering charge.

Prosecutors say he’s “an ongoing danger to the community” because he recently posted a Facebook ad asking for cuddles. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson says state lawmakers are “grandstanding” by holding numerous hearings to discuss a tax refund problem caused by a mistake on state tax withholding tables.

Parson on Wednesday defended Revenue Director Joel Walters handling of the problem, which could cost thousands of Missouri taxpayers on their state income tax returns for 2018.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Parson noted that Walters has testified at 10 hearings so far about the issue. He says the revenue department has worked to fix the 15-year-old miscalculation on withholding tables, and Walters is focusing on solutions, rather than political grandstanding.

The miscalculation, which has been corrected, could sharply reduce or eliminate many people’s state refunds.

Some lawmakers say the revenue department did a poor job of warning Missourians about the problem.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appears to be ruling out a Kansas Senate race in 2020.

Pompeo, who represented Kansas’ 4th Congressional District from 2011 to 2017, says he’ll serve as secretary of state as long as President Donald Trump wants him to.

“It’s ruled out.” @SecPompeo says of running for an open Senate seat in Kansas in 2020 pic.twitter.com/mrVCrEFu6o

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 21, 2019

Pompeo was asked on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday if he’s interested in running for the Senate and replied, “I love doing what I’m doing.” When an interviewer said Pompeo sounded as though he wasn’t ruling it out, Pompeo said, “It’s ruled out.”

Last month, Pompeo deflected speculation he might run for retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat, telling Fox News he was focused on his current job.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Court records say a suburban Kansas City man told investigators he didn’t seek medical care for his ailing mother before she died weighing just 58 pounds (26 kilograms) and suffering from open bed sores.

Records were released Wednesday in the case against 51-year-old Raymond McManness, of Olathe, Kansas. He’s jailed on $1 million bond on charges of first-degree murder and mistreatment of a dependent adult in the death last month of 75-year-old Sharon McManness.

His attorney didn’t immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press.

Court records say Raymond McManness told police he didn’t follow advice to take his mother to a doctor because the holidays had made him busy and he was “scared because he had not been taking adequate care of her.”

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have reintroduced a proposal that would allow judges to order poachers to pay restitution fees ranging from $375 to $5,000.

Two identical bills filed in the Missouri House and Senate could gain more traction among lawmakers this year considering three recent cases in which elk were illegally killed, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

Under the proposed legislation, the fees vary depending on whether poachers were convicted for illegally killing deer, elk, black bears, turkeys or paddlefish. Deer poachers could face fines between $1,000 and $2,000, while fines for poaching wild turkey range from $375 to $750. The restitution money would be added to the state’s education fund.

“Under current Missouri law, the maximum fine for poaching can actually be smaller than the cost of buying a proper hunting or fishing license,” said Republican Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, who’s sponsoring one of the bills. “This has prompted some poachers to simply take their chances rather than pay for a permit.”

A bill seeking the same passed the House last year but died in a Senate committee. Lawmakers may view the proposed legislation with more urgency this time around, after two elk were shot this month and one was killed in January. Missouri doesn’t have a hunting season for elk.

“The rash of poaching at our elk conservation areas illustrates the necessity of harsher deterrents for poachers. Two of our elk were illegally shot in Shannon County this month, not for meat or even for their antlers, but just for sport,” Bernskoetter said. “These callous acts should demonstrate to all Missourians the need for harsher poaching penalties.”

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By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s election created a national buzz about a possible shift to the left in Kansas politics, but many Republicans remain unimpressed and feel little pressure to take up her big initiatives.

The GOP-dominated Legislature has yet to have committee hearings on her plan to expand the state’s Medicaid health coverage for the needy. It has ignored her call to approve an increase in public school funding by the end of this month. A key part of her budget already appears dead . Top Republicans are pursuing a tax relief bill she considers fiscally reckless.

She and other Democrats believe her victory represented a repudiation of Republican predecessors’ policies. Three current lawmakers from the Kansas City area, where Kelly ran especially well, switched to the Democratic Party in December, drawing even more attention to what had been seen as a reliably red state.

Yet many Republican legislators treat Kelly’s victory as a fluke. She won with 48 percent of the vote and her political strength was concentrated in relatively few populous counties. More-local races left the Legislature more conservative, and the party switching didn’t change the balance of power because Democrats attracted GOP moderates likely to help Kelly anyway.

“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for her governorship,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican.

Democrats hold 23 governor’s offices after picking up seven in last year’s midterm elections as they tapped discontent with President Donald Trump, particularly in suburbs. Victories in governor’s races in Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin broke GOP strangleholds on those state governments.

Kelly and her top advisers have said repeatedly that voters elected her to “fix” state government after Republican policies wrecked it. She said earlier this month, “I’m very confident that the people of Kansas are behind me.”

“Gov. Kelly won election in a Republican state. I say that’s a mandate,” said state Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, a Kansas City Democrat.

But Republicans repeatedly note Kelly’s failure to get a majority of the vote against the conservative GOP nominee, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, with independent candidate Greg Orman taking about 6.5 percent. Also, Kelly carried only nine of the state’s 105 counties.

Former U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, who lost his seat in his Kansas City-area congressional district last year, said Democrats are “misreading the tea leaves.”

“I don’t see this as an endorsement of the more liberal policies that Gov. Kelly is suggesting,” said Yoder, also a former Kansas House member. “The role of the Republican legislators is to represent the traditional Republican values that have made Kansas strong, keeping taxes down, small government, a focus on business.”

Republicans’ views about Kelly’s victories are partly shaped by an ongoing post-mortem of Kobach’s candidacy within the GOP.

Kobach barely unseated Gov. Jeff Colyer in the GOP primary and has since faced Republican grumbling that he ran a lackluster general-election campaign. Kobach’s vocal advocacy of tough immigration laws and take-no-prisoners style of conservatism alienated GOP moderates.

Some Republicans contend the more affable Colyer would have given Kelly a tougher race.

“I think she won because a lot of people were voting against Kobach,” said state Rep. Kyle Hoffman, a GOP conservative from southwest Kansas.

Republicans retained their legislative supermajorities and didn’t see their small net loss of seats until the party switching in December. GOP conservatives picked up at least half a dozen seats in the House and one in the Senate at the expense of moderates.

“The center of Kansas politics was somewhat hollowed out,” said state Rep. Don Hineman, a moderate Republican from western Kansas ousted as House majority leader after the election.

Many Republicans contend that the collective outcome of dozens of legislative races demonstrates that voters aren’t enthusiastic about Kelly’s agenda.

“It’s the legislative elections that are the more indicative of what is going on in the state,” said Sen. Ty Masterson, a conservative Wichita-area Republican who has called Kelly’s election “a tragic collision of timing.”

Republican resistance has meant a rocky start for Kelly’s administration. The House last week rejected a plan from Kelly to reduce the state’s annual payments to its public pension system to create breathing room in the budget, with GOP members united. When the Senate approved its tax relief bill earlier this month, most moderates backed it.

The lack of movement on Medicaid expansion is particularly frustrating for Kelly and fellow Democrats.

Her plan revives a bill that passed with bipartisan majorities in 2017, only to be vetoed by then-conservative GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. Supporters believe a majority of lawmakers still support Medicaid expansion, but opponents hold key leadership posts and committee chairmanships in both chambers, effectively blocking action for now.

The governor sent a letter this week to committee leaders in the House and Senate, asking for hearings on her plan — a courtesy routinely granted in the past, even when lawmakers strongly opposed a governor’s major initiatives.

Many Democrats and even some moderate Republicans believe their GOP colleagues are merely posturing at the beginning of Kelly’s administration. Also, the new governor’s power to veto GOP legislation means Republicans can’t write her off.

But Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat and Kelly ally, said, “At some point, I think she’s going to have to probably get their attention.”