JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — While Gov. Mike Parson’s administration points to Missouri’s improving economy as a reason up to 70,000 people dropped off the state’s Medicaid rolls last year, advocates for recipients say problems with the new renewal system for applicants is causing part of the decline.

The new system adopted last spring by the Department of Social Services automatically renews a low rate of recipients and has problems accessing data, the advocates say. That contributed to an estimated 70,000 people dropping from the state’s Medicaid rolls last year, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported . In the first three months of this year, the department said more than 12,000 more people, including 9,500 additional children, no longer have Medicaid coverage.

Joel Ferber, director of advocacy for the Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, said that creates a worst-case scenario where recipients never receive a Medicaid application and then find out they’ve been dropped despite already reporting their income to the state.

“Every child that has needed our help has been eligible for Medicaid or CHIP,” Ferber said. “They only lost coverage because their parents were unable to get over the unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles.”

St. Louis University law professor Sidney Watson said the likely outcome of violating federal Medicaid regulations would be the state receiving a letter from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services instructing the state to fix the problem by a certain time.

“The intent behind those regulations was to assure that when information was available to the state, and it is available to the state, they just have to make the computer system work,” Watson said. “There are federal matching funds to create those computer systems to keep them up-to-date. It’s a matter of will.”

Missouri’s renewal program also funnels patients with no income through the manual renewal process even though they clearly qualify for Medicaid. The renewal system for several months was not programmed to allow individuals to consent to the state accessing the recipients’ federal income tax information.

The problems meant MoHealthNet had fewer ways to access patient income information, meaning it had less ability to automatically renew patients.

Department of Social Services said in a statement that the agency plans to build a new tracking system that integrates SNAP with Medicaid eligibility. It is also working with federal officials to find ways to automatically renew Medicaid eligibility reliably through federal data.

The agency said Missouri automatically renewed about 11 percent of Medicaid recipients in recent months. That state is among the bottom 10 states that automatically renew less than a quarter of Medicaid recipients, according to a nationwide report conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

LAMAR, Mo. (AP) — A jury has recommended that a 39-year-old Lamar man be sentenced to five years in prison for pulling a gun during a confrontation with a police officer.

William Kirch was convicted Tuesday of second-degree felony assault of a police officer.

Prosecutors say an officer approached Kirch in August 2017 in a car in Lamar.

The officer, Austin Eaves, testified that as Kirch was getting out of a car, he reached for a gun in his waistband. Eaves says that Kirch dropped the gun when the officer pulled on his arms.

Kirch’s attorney argued during trial that Kirch reached for the gun in order to put it on the car seat.

Kirch will be sentenced June 13.

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – The former Linn County Attorney pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges of stealing 350 to 500 items including electronics and equipment that belonged to the county, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said today. The estimated value of the items is $75,000.

John Sutherland, 68, Mound City, Kan., who served as county attorney for approximately 20 years before leaving the job in January 2017, is charged with one count of mail fraud and one count of lying to federal investigators. The crimes are alleged to have taken place from sometime prior to January 2009 and continuing until Sutherland left office.

In his plea, Sutherland admitted that on Feb. 6, 2019, FBI agents found 13 items stolen from Linn County when they searched Sutherland’s office at the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office. At the time, Sutherland was working as an Assistant District Attorney. One of the items was a stolen Apple laptop computer.

When FBI agents interviewed him, Sutherland denied any wrongdoing and made other false statements. For instance, he claimed that an Apple TV 64 GB video-streaming device the county purchased for about $220 had been destroyed. FBI agents found the device intact at Sutherland’s residence. They also found that Sutherland had given some of the stolen items to his adult children.

In his plea agreement, Sutherland agreed to pay full restitution and to surrender his license to practice law. The mail fraud count carries a penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000. The false statement count carries a penalty of up to five years and a fine up to $250,000.

By JOHN HANNA AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and top Republican legislators met Wednesday to try to break a stalemate on expanding Medicaid in Kansas, only to fail after she demanded that lawmakers approve a plan this year and the GOP leaders insisted on waiting until next year.

Kelly set aside four hours for talks in her Statehouse office with the majority leaders and heads of the health committees in the House and Senate, who oppose her expansion proposal. The meeting broke up after about 90 minutes when it became clear that neither Kelly nor the Republicans would give on whether a plan should pass this year, participants said.

The impasse sets up a high-stakes confrontation over one of the Democratic governor’s biggest campaign promises after the GOP-controlled Legislature ends an annual spring break May 1. The House approved a modified version of Kelly’s expansion plan last month, but the Senate has yet to take it up.

“She’s still willing to take (it) and try to cram it down everybody’s throats and then hope that the details come out in the wash,” said House health committee Chairwoman Brenda Landwehr, a conservative Wichita Republican. “That’s not the way to do this.”

Thirty-six states have either expanded Medicaid or seen voters approve ballot initiatives. Expansion enjoys bipartisan support in the Kansas Legislature but GOP leaders are still resisting, arguing that it is likely to prove costly to the state despite a promise that the federal government would cover 90 percent of the cost.

Patrick Willard, a senior director at Families USA, a national health care advocacy group that supports expansion, said Kelly’s meeting was a sign that GOP leaders understand the public’s deep concerns about health care and that expansion has popular support.

“In a state that has been holding out as long as Kansas has, people and the (health care) industry are hurting, and all of that is coming to a head,” Willard said.

Kelly and other expansion supporters have been trying to build pressure on Republican leaders to allow a Senate vote. The governor has held town hall meetings in GOP lawmakers’ districts and marked the 100th day of her administration Wednesday with a statement that Senate leaders should “stop playing games with taxpayers’ health care.”

Kelly spokeswoman Ashley All said the meeting gave Republican leaders a chance to negotiate a plan “in good faith.”

“She was disappointed that they didn’t provide any solutions or ideas — only excuses and stall tactics,” All said. “It became very clear that they were not interested in finding a solution to provide affordable health care for more Kansans this year.”

Kelly’s health secretary, Lee Norman, who participated in the meeting, said the administration agrees with the GOP leaders that more work needs to be done on the Medicaid expansion legislation.

“We’d like to continue to push ahead with it,” Norman said. “The cards are on the table, and I think the details are something that we can work out.”

Top Republicans have said in recent weeks they are willing to consider a more modest expansion than Kelly has advocated, as well as work requirements or drug testing for participants.

Families USA has released an analysis suggesting that the influx of federal dollars with expansion would spur economic activity and state tax revenues to offset the state’s costs. Kelly’s administration projected a net state cost of $34 million in expansion’s first year, but skeptical GOP leaders argue that it easily could be twice that.

Read my statement concerning today’s meeting with Governor Kelly, Senate Majority Leader Denning, Senate Health Chair Suellentrop, and House Health Chair Landwehr about Medicaid expansion. #ksleg pic.twitter.com/lTdhGo2a4Q

— Dan Hawkins (@DanHawkinsKS) April 24, 2019

House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins said after the meeting that he’s seen nothing that would “prevent expansion from busting the budget.”

“Medicaid expansion is like a lemon on a used car lot,” Hawkins said. “You can paint it up and give it that new car scent but it will never run right.”

I and other leadership members of the House and Senate met with Governor Laura Kelly today regarding a medicaid expansion plan. Details of the meeting are listed in the attached release. #ksleg pic.twitter.com/kp0K3Qk5Wl

— Jim Denning (@JimDenning4KS) April 24, 2019

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican, said the legislation should also address problems with rising costs for Kansas consumers who get their health coverage through a federal marketplace. Denning committed Wednesday to a debate — but next year.

“She doesn’t want to wait until next year,” Denning said. “I always say if you want it bad, you get it bad. Gov. Kelly’s wanting it so bad, she’s willing to have it bad.”

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Missouri State women’s basketball icon Jackie Stiles is leaving the school to be an assistant coach at Oklahoma.

Stiles-photo courtesy OU

Oklahoma announced Wednesday that it hired Stiles, who has been on the Lady Bears coaching staff for six seasons under former coach Kellie Harper.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that Stiles is leaving as Amaka Agugua-Hamilton replaces Harper as Missouri State’s head coach.

Missouri State Athletics Director Kyle Moats declined to say if Stiles was considered for the head coaching job.

Stiles held the Division I women’s basketball leading scorer record between 2001 and 2017. She led the Lady Bears to the 2001 NCAA Final Four and was the school’s first player to be drafted into the WNBA.

She is undergoing treatment for eye cancer, which was diagnosed in December 2017.